Breaking In
by SomewhereApart
Summary: Robin Locksley has hit rock bottom. A rash decision to help his family has lead to him nearly losing them instead, and now he's woken up to discover he accidentally broke into in the home of a stranger - single mom and ad executive Regina Mills - while stumbling home drunk last night. Can these neighbors overcome their rocky start to find something they need in each other?
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: **Based on this prompt: i really want an "i accidentally broke into your house/apartment because my friend lives next door to you and i was in the area, drunk, and i thought i was climbing into the right window and falling asleep on the right couch (and i did wonder when my friend got two cats but i didn't question it) so now i'm hungover and shirtless in your living room so um hi"_

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><p>He is piss drunk.<p>

So sloshed that the world is wobbling, spinning backward on its axis, making everything tip and spin like he's riding the tilt-a-whirl at the amusement park with Roland.

Roland.

Roland who is three today, and whose birthday party he missed for no good reason whatsoever. For a truly horrible reason in fact, and that reason is spite.

Bloody, selfish, sodding, stupid spite.

It's his own fault, he supposes. He'd cocked up his whole relationship three weeks before his boy, his whole light, his everything, had his birthday, and so the party he and Marian had talked of just a month ago, the one with the cupcakes and the balloons and the clown (he hates clowns, but she loves them and Roland laughs and laughs at every sight of them) had gone off without so much as a word to him that it was actually happening.

It wasn't for lack of trying - he's been calling Marian twice daily for weeks, asking that she please speak to him. That she let him explain. That he'd done it for them, what she'd seen, what she'd found. He'd done it so they could afford things like rented clowns and Cookie Monster cupcakes. (And eggs and bread and Christmas presents.)

And it's not as though that stodgy old couple would even suffer for the things he'd nicked and fenced - the stinking rich are well insured, and they were just baubles, he was careful not to take anything that looked sentimental or irreplaceable.

But she'll have none of it, won't even speak to him except to tell him he's lucky she's not calling the police to report him and have him arrested. Have him thrown in jail and locked away and Robin thanks his lucky stars he's so close to his boy because he knows, he is certain, that the only reason she hasn't turned him in for his crimes is the damage it would do Roland to grow up with a convict for a father. A thief. A common, petty, vile thief. That's what she'd called him.

And so he is drunk tonight. Piss drunk. So drunk the bartender took his keys to ensure he didn't stumble into his car and attempt to drive home (despite his promises he would do no such thing). He is drunk and the world is spinning, and he's been walking for what seems likes hours but cannot be more than a quarter of an hour. Despite the fact he's stopped for a piss twice on the way, saying a silent apology to whomever's camellias he showered a few blocks back.

But now he's here, on this street, where he's been staying with John these past few weeks. It's lined with row houses, each identical to the other, quaint red brick all crammed up together in pairs and bloody confusing in his current state to be honest. But he makes his way down the block on stumbling feet, carrying himself along until he reaches the right house, and it's not until he turns the knob and feels it give not an inch that he remembers John is out of town for the weekend and he's left his keys at the sodding bar, a five-years walk back from where he now stands.

He's half a mind to sleep right there on the stoop like a vagrant, but he's better than that, and frankly it's a bit cold out (he's not feeling it much, whiskey-soaked as he is, but he can tell it's chilly). And he's not a common, petty, vile thief for nothing. A locked door is no match for Robin Locksley, even drunk as a skunk. There's a side window, one that's never locked, and he makes his way there, nearly comes to blows with the rubbish bin in the alleyway en route. Sure enough, it's unlocked and he lifts the sill and hoists himself up, climbs through rather gracelessly (it's a good thing he'd been sober when he'd robbed that estate, now isn't it? He'd never have gotten away with it if he'd been this sloppy).

But then he's faced with the stairs that lead up to the bedrooms, and that's... That's just too much for his inebriated knees to handle.

He opts for the sofa instead, stumbling there and planting facedown. It's rather more stiff than he remembers it being and he has to push aside a children's chapter book he doesn't remember them owning. Something far beyond Roland's nonexistent reading level - all the colorful covers in the world won't help Narnia make a lick of sense to a toddler, and Robin thinks he'll tell John so just as soon as he gets back to town next week.

It's the last thing he thinks before he sinks under into oblivion.

**.::.**

"Mom."

It's a phantom address, something she hears, but doesn't. Something that could easily be a dream.

"Mom!"

Regina grunts, burrows down further into her pillow.

"_Mom!" _

That one was more forceful, more insistent, her little boy's voice clearing out the sleepy cobwebs of her mind. Regina cracks an eye open and looks at the clock. Ten to six. She's an early riser, but it's another twenty minutes before her usual wake up time.

"Mom, there's someone downstairs," Henry insists urgently, and Regina reaches out for him, waving him closer when her outstretched fingers can't quite grasp his golden snitch pajamas.

"There's nobody downstairs," she rasps, trying to be reassuring despite the sleepy scratch of her voice. Henry has a vivid imagination, one that runs wild from time to time, and every now and then this will happen. He will wake convinced something in a dream is real, and need her to talk him down.

"No, Mom, _listen!"_ he hisses, particularly frantic this time. Fearful.

Regina sighs, half awake now, and tells herself to stop being selfish and allay his concerns. So she listens, makes a point to look like she's listening. And that's when she hears it - a great, heaving snore - and she bolts upright in bed, heart in her throat, reaching for Henry and tugging him close.

There is someone downstairs.

There is someone in her house, in their house, someone male - or a woman who snores like a drunken trucker.

She hears her mother in her head, warning her that this wasn't the best of neighborhoods despite its charm. That she could do better, that she and Henry could be safer if only she'd let Cora and Henry Sr. help her for God's sake. She'd told her mother she was being paranoid, that this was a perfectly safe neighborhood, that the schools were good and it was an easy commute downtown for her, and that moving here was the smart, practical thing to do even if the neighborhood was still on its way from dodgy to trendy.

But now it is six AM on a Sunday and there is someone in her home and Regina's heart is hammering hard, so hard she can practically hear it, her mouth gone dry.

"Henry stay here," she whispers firmly, sliding from the bed and reaching for the Louisville Slugger she keeps tucked behind the nightstand (it's a safe neighborhood, sure, but one can never be too prepared). She grips it tightly in sweaty palms as she takes cautious steps closer and closer to the stairwell. The old hardwoods creak under her feet, chilly beneath her bare toes.

He's in the living room, she realizes as she takes the stairs one by one, drawing nearer to the sound of their intruder sawing logs. But then, where else would he be? Beneath the kitchen table? Sacked out on the rug just inside door beside their discarded shoes?

How did he even get _in_ here? she wonders, but as she reaches the bottom of the stairs she sees the side window open wide, curtains billowing in the breeze, letting in gusts of chilly air. She'd opened it the other day when she was cleaning, had wanted to let out some of the stuffy, stale air pent up by the last dregs of winter and let in something fresh and crisp. She must have forgotten to lock the latch when she closed it - how _stupid _could she be?

She won't be making that mistake again, that's for sure.

With a heavy swallow she rounds the wall into the living room, expecting to find one of the hobos who takes up a bench overnight at the park a few blocks down, some huge, smelly oaf leaving the stench of body odor and cheap hooch on her dove gray sofa.

What she _does _find is a step up from that, at least. On said sofa is sprawled a man about her age, who would not be unattractive in other circumstances - circumstances where he was not slack-jawed and drooling, his jacket slipping off his shoulders and essentially straightjacketing him (a plus for her if it turns out he's crazy and she has to use the bat after all), rumpled t-shirt rucked up to reveal a few inches of toned belly. He snorts another snore - he's drunk and loose, smells like a distillery - smacks his lips sleepily and huffs out a breath.

Okay. Well. Might as well get this over with.

She keeps her distance, keeps her hold on the bat, and barks sharply, "Wake up!"

He doesn't even stir.

Great.

Regina extends the tip of the bat, gives him a light jab in the ribs. "Hey!"

He frowns deeply then, shifts away from the contact.

Regina scowls, pulls the bat back a few inches and, well, punches him with it. Square in the side of his ribs.

That does it.

**.::.**

Robin wakes with a start, wheezing, his ribs throbbing, his head pounding, light streaming in and stabbing him straight in the brainstem even through his now-scrunched-closed eyelids. He curls in on himself, away from the pain, tries to sink back under into sleep and gets another jab in the ribs for his trouble.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" a voice asks him, and it is definitely not John. It is entirely unfamiliar, and as he slings an arm over his face to block the devilish light that assaults him, his fingers brush the back of the couch. He realizes with a plummeting, sinking feeling in his gut that it is upholstered, and John's is leather, and this is not John's sofa which means this is not John's house, and that's just bloody great. Now Marian can add home invasion to his list of vices.

He drops the leaden weight of his arm back to the sofa, squinting against the sunlight and trying to make out the vision of the woman standing over him. If she could just move a few feet to the left, she'd be blocking the better part of the window, and he wouldn't feel like someone was burying an ice pick in his skull with every traitorous beat of his heart. He fights to focus, and there she is. She's slight, looks even more so in her thin silk pajama set (it's chilly in here, and her nipples are hard beneath the fabric, and he feels like a heel for even noticing, he feels even more of a jerk at her state of undress, at the sure terror a woman living alone - and she must be, or her husband or boyfriend would certainly have been the one rousing him now - waking to discover a strange man in her house). But she's staring him down unblinkingly, gripping a bat in both hands, it's end aimed right at Robin (he's lucky he woke to a jab instead of a pummel, he thinks).

He swallows thickly, and says dumbly, "This isn't John's house."

Her frown deepens, her mouth drawing into a tighter scowl (and a lovely mouth it is – she's altogether quite lovely in fact, with dark hair that doesn't quite reach her shoulders, presently tousled from sleep, equally dark eyes that are glaring skeptically at him), and then she relaxes and lets the bat fall to her side, gripped loosely in one hand.

"No, that's next door, you drunken idiot," she sighs bitterly, tossing the bat to the floor with a clatter that reverberates in his head like cannonfire. She crosses her arms tightly over her chest now, tilts her chin up just a little so she's looking down on him even more, regal as a queen despite her pajamas and tangled hair. "You're the friend who's been staying with him."

"I am," Robin confirms, and then finally attempts to sit, gingerly, his stomach pitching and rolling. Christ. "But I'm not drunk anymore," he murmurs, his mouth filling rapidly with saliva, spit pulled from somewhere inside his horribly dehydrated body, though he's no idea how. He's going to vomit. Lovely. He drops his head into his hands, breathes slowly in an attempt to quell the rising tide and breathes, "Wish I was still drunk."

"Because that's just what you need," she huffs, and then, "Don't you dare throw up in my living room."

He nods slightly, regrets it immediately, both because of the stabbing pain in his head and the fresh surge of nausea the action evokes. He pulls one hand from where he'd had them pressed against his eyeballs and fists it, brings it to his lips, tells himself to reign it in. To tamp it down. Useless things that will not help in the slightest.

"Oh, for God's sake," she grouses, and then he's being jerked and yanked by surprisingly strong hands, pulled to his feet and oh god, that's not helpful, that's not good, this is not good, he's going to -

**.::.**

Regina shoves her drunken stranger into the main floor powder room just in time. He hits his knees in front of the toilet bowl, goes down hard enough that she nearly winces in sympathy, but then he's retching. Loudly. Forcefully. Letting forth a wet, sloshing torrent into the toilet. She finds herself feeling much less sympathetic. At least he held it in until the bathroom, she tells herself. It could have been worse.

She leaves him there and heads for the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee and brewing it extra strong as she tries to remember his name. Rodney? Robert?

She's not what one would call good friends with John but she knows him, he has a dog, Tuck, that Henry adores. So they talk from time to time, and Regina knows he has an extended houseguest. A friend down on his luck, something about a relationship gone sour, and she remembers John telling her he's "a good guy." Whatever that means.

She's seen him once or twice, coming and going - might even have recognized him more quickly if he hadn't been passed out in her home and she hadn't been scared out of her wits. It's possible she may even have thought he was attractive (very attractive, incredibly so, she has a secret preference for men with a bit of stubble, for eyes that blue, for that tortured, gloomy look he has about him). So she remembers that John had spoken well of him, had for a moment entertained the thought that if the temporary good guy houseguest turned into a permanent good guy roommate, maybe she'd even attempt to get to know him. Now, though...

Now that good guy is still vomiting up a night of bad decisions in her powder room as she climbs the stairs to reassure her son that they haven't been the victims of a vicious home invasion, and she finds herself infinitely less attracted to him than she had been before.

**.::.**

Robin throws up an entire bottle of Jameson, and then his stomach lining, his actual stomach, small intestine and part of his spleen he's certain. He vomits until his throat burns and his eyes are wet, his nose running.

God, he's a mess. No wonder Marian wants nothing to do with him anymore.

He doesn't _deserve_ Roland, not right now, not like this. What the bloody hell was he thinking, robbing that house. Sure, he's been laid off for months now, and the absolutely shit job market has kept him that way, and he's a day shy of the food shelf, of food stamps, of just tossing it all in and applying to flip burgers for a living if that's what it takes. He _should_ have applied to flip burgers, but he has a bit of pride, too much pride perhaps, and he did a bit of work for Henry Mills, and he knew the house would be empty. Knew they were off on holiday in Europe for several weeks, and that their security system was easily overridden. He'd spent his teenage years running with the wrong crowd, nicking things from shops without getting caught, nicking things from homes until it got to be a bit too close one night, and he'd realized it was bloody stupid to throw his life away for cheap thrills.

He hasn't stolen a thing since he was seventeen, not until a month ago, and now he knows why. However noble his reasons, he's lowered himself, dragged himself down in the dirt out of pride, given in to temptation and told himself it was justified - stealing from the rich to line his poor pockets. And look where it's gotten him - puking his guts up in a stranger's home, in a tiny powder room that smells of rose and spice (and now whiskey and vomit), saved only by the fact that she seems to have at least some knowledge of John, enough that she didn't call the police immediately.

Or maybe she has, maybe he's going to walk out of that bathroom to find some shiny silver bracelets waiting for him, the price for absconding with several ruby and emerald ones from a rich, overbearing lady and hoping nobody would be the wiser until it was too late to catch him.

He supposes he ought to face the music, ought to get the hell out of her home, and so he flushes his sick down the toilet and drags himself to his feet, gripping the edges of the little pedestal sink and staring at his face in the small mirror above it.

Good Christ, he hardly recognizes himself. Eyes blood-shot, face sallow, stubble an overgrown mess. He blows his nose, palms a bit of water into his mouth to rinse the taste of bile away (it does little good, his mouth is a swamp), splashes another cool palmful onto his face and pats it with her delicate hand towel, then heads toward the door she'd thankfully closed on him.

He takes slow, gentle steps, his stomach still a shaky, unsteady wreck, and when he opens the door, the strong scent of coffee is both a blessing and a curse. Coffee will right him, he thinks, or at least it will be a start, and it smells heavenly and strong. But the idea of anything, even a drop, hitting his belly makes it roll and lurch perilously again.

He turns toward the soft sound of her voice, takes three steps and is in the kitchen. The kitchen where the lovely woman who by all rights should have clobbered him with a bat not half an hour ago is now wrapped in a cozy grey robe, pouring milk over cereal for a young boy.

"Christ, you have a child."

As if Robin could not feel any worse. The boy's older than Roland by a good several years, but still young, not yet a teenager. Nine, perhaps eleven. A young single mother, then, she probably is, and she's somehow tasked with explaining the stinking drunk in their home to a child.

She arches a brow at him, a silent admonishment for his language, his existence, his everything, Robin is certain. And then she answers simply, "I do," and heads for the counter, for the coffee. There's a steaming mug of it already sitting on the table, a large, round scarlet ceramic thing, nearly a bowl, the coffee inside pale with milk. Next to it is a bit of toast with peanut butter smeared across it, a single, dainty bite taken out of a corner.

"I'm Henry," the boy tells him, distracting him from his dull perusal of her breakfast.

"I'm Robin," he answers in kind. "And I'm very sorry to be in your home uninvited. That was wrong of me."

The boy's mother snorts her disbelief, her back still to him. But the boy himself just shrugs, and says, "You live with John."

"I do."

"Can I come over and play with Tuck?"

So the boy knows the dog, then. He's an old shaggy mutt, a wonderful dog - one who at this very moment is probably prowling the door with hunger, annoyed at being forgotten for the night.

"I used to walk him and feed him when John wasn't home," Henry explains before Robin can answer. "But now you're there, so I haven't seen him in a while. I have a bone for him - Mom let me get it from the store last week."

"That was very kind of you," Robin tells the boy, and God, his head is splitting. Is he swaying? He feels as if he's swaying on his feet, but can't tell if it's real or just the lingering effects of his stupor. "I've no problem with you coming by, but only if it's alright with your mum."

"It's not," the mother says coolly (and to his complete lack of surprise), heading back his way now, a beat up old travel mug in hand. It's one of those cheap plastic ones you'd get at the Starbucks, and it's gotten wet inside, the paper decorated with fall leaves and something about pumpkin spice gone rumpled and smeared with condensation. Probably took a run through the dishwasher - he'd done the same to one of Marian's once, and she'd huffed and griped and said something about double-walled insulation and hand-wash only, and he'd felt like a heel for simply trying to help.

This woman, this woman whose name he's yet to catch despite his intimate acquaintance with her toilet bowl and his night spent in the unintentional hospitality of her home - this woman pushes the mug into his hands, and tells him, "Coffee. Black. Don't ask for milk or sugar, I'm not a coffeehouse, and you're not a guest." She nods down toward the mug and says, "And I want that back."

"Of course," he murmurs, shifting it in his grip. His stomach rolls again at the thought of drinking anything, even this, but he is grateful for the gesture - the wholly unnecessary, kind gesture. She ought to have booted him out on his ass and let him puke on the curb and then stumble next door to John's. So he tells her, "Thank you. And I'm very sorry."

"Good," she tells him, crossing her arms over her chest again, and by God, she really is a picture up close. Those dark eyes are brown, almost black, like bitter dark chocolate, and they're lovely even when she's frowning at him. She ought to look more hateful, he thinks, more disgusted, and she does look both of those things, but he thinks there's a bit of pity underneath. Maybe even a speck of sympathy that makes him feel even lower, because he is entirely undeserving of that. And then they harden, hone sharp like flint, and she tells him, "Now get out."

"Yes, of course," he murmurs, and he nods a goodbye at the boy, then turns for the door.

**.::.**

"Well," Regina tells Henry as she takes her seat at the table, listens for the sound of the door closing behind their intruder. "That was eventful."

He's spooning up Apple Jacks (they're a bit too sugary for her approval, she doesn't allow them often, but he's had a fairly traumatizing morning - or at least he should have, she imagines, but he's entirely too trusting of John, and as soon as she'd told him the man on the sofa was a friend of his, that he was there by mistake and thought their place was John's, he'd been entirely unafraid. Still. Apple Jacks it is, this morning), slurping milk off his spoon and earning a look of disapproval.

"Why can't I go play with Tuck?" he asks after his next bite. "Robin seems okay."

"Robin is a drunk," Regina tells him. "Or at least, he's a man who drinks enough he can't even find his way home properly. I don't trust him, I don't know him. You can play with Tuck when John is home - and _only_ when John his home, do you understand me, young man? I don't want to see you over there with Robin."

Henry sulks, but nods, and and swirls his spoon through his cereal, as Regina nibbles at toast that has long gone cold. Tack that onto the man's sins - lingering long enough to make her breakfast sub-par.

She's lying to Henry, though. She doesn't _trust_ Robin, but she has a gut feeling that he's not a danger. That letting Henry over for some fetch with the pup wouldn't do any harm. Still, she's a mother, and it's her job to protect him - which means choosing her head over her gut and keeping him far, far away from the man who broke into their home in a drunken stupor.

**.::.**

The morning is cold, colder than he was anticipating, and Robin tugs his collar up against his neck for even the short walk next door to John's, lifting that travel mug for a sip of hot coffee after all. It's dark and strong, delicious. It doesn't exactly settle his stomach, but it doesn't make it worse either, so he sips again. The woman makes good coffee.

He climbs the stoop on weary legs, even those few steps enough to make him feel tired. He needs to drink a bit of this coffee, then have another lie-down. Sleep off this bloody hangover.

But when he reaches for the knob he remembers just why he'd ended up at the neighbors in the first place - his lack of keys, the long walk between home and the bar. Christ, it still sounds like miles. Ages. And the idea of scaling six feet of wall to climb in that side window is significantly more daunting than it had been when he was sloshed last night. He hopes for a false rock, for something, even kicks up the corner of the doormat even though he doubts John is that predictable.

He can see his breath, his fingers chilly as he fishes out his phone to call John, hoping there's a neighbor with a spare key he can wake at this ungodly hour and beg forgiveness and entrance into John's place.

Tuck woofs from the other side of the door as the phone rings and rings and rings and then John picks up, his voice a low, gravelly thing when he mutters, "This better be good if you're waking me before seven."

"I'm locked out," Robin sighs, "And hungover, I feel like shit, I cannot climb in that window."

"Thank God," John mutters, "The neighbors would probably think the place was being robbed."

Robin thinks of the ease with which he crept into the neighbors house last night, and doubts very much that the neighbors would even notice - granted, last night it was dark, everyone was asleep. Mrs. Lucas across the street was not eyeing him from the other side of her open curtains the way she is now.

"Does one of those neighbors, by chance, have a spare key? Or is there one hidden somewhere you've not told me about, or…?"

"Regina Mills," John tells him and Robin's heart lurches into his throat. Regina Mills. He's heard that name before, Regina – had heard it from the lips of both Cora and Henry Mills while he installed their new sound system, and then again when he'd offered to teach the older man the ins and out of their new security system (the one he'd so egregiously taken advantage of in order to pilfer several thousand dollars of jewelry not so long ago. Just his luck that's where he has to go bed for entry to his own home). "She's two doors down - 5802. Her kid walks Tuck sometimes when I'm gone. She's usually up early, she's probably awake by now."

If his heart was in his throat before, it is clear down into his shoes now.

Regina.

Her name was Regina.

The woman whose home he has just left, the woman in 5802 with the dark eyes and the strong coffee, whose sofa he spent the night on, and whose toilet he upended his guts into this morning. And whose parents he apparently robbed. He has to return to her and ask for keys.

He wants to say this day couldn't get any worse, but he knows better than to tempt fate like that - it could always get worse than personal humiliation. So he says goodbye to John and trudges back the way he came.

He knocks, and then waits, and after a few minutes the door opens, and there she is again, still scowling (scowling again, he's sure, but it's all she's done at him all morning, so he cannot imagine the calmer look he hopes she held once he was out of her hair).

"What?" she asks him, the door open only several inches, enough to show her face and a column of her body, and little more. Enough to make it clear she's not going to be welcoming him back inside.

"I'm locked out," he admits sheepishly. "John says you've his spare keys."

She sizes him up, looks down, up, down again. "Locked out."

"Yes. The bartender took my keys last night, round about the same time he cut me off."

"Well, thank heavens for that," she mutters, stepping back and opening the door wider. "You probably would've killed someone. Or yourself." She holds a hand out to gesture for him to enter, although it's a move that speaks more clearly of annoyance than invitation.

Then she heads for the kitchen again, throwing him a glance over her shoulder as she goes. Wary, this time. And he supposes she ought to be. It's one thing to find a man in your home and kick him out, it's another entirely to let him back in.

She stops suddenly, halfway through the living room, and turns. "That's why you broke in," she realizes. "You didn't have your key."

"I'm afraid so."

"Well, that explains that," she mutters, and then she's walking again, heading for the kitchen (it's clean now, dishes cleared off the table and her son nowhere to be found, although Robin hears footsteps upstairs, the boy must be up in his room).

"I truly am sorry," he tells her, lingering near the table as she heads for the phone, lifts it and punches the buttons. He feels a twist of anxious guilt in his gut, both for disturbing her peace again and for what he'd done to her parents, what he's taken from her family. He lifts the coffee again and takes a long pull, trying to swallow the guilt down with the bitter brew.

"You've already said that," she mutters, lifting the phone to her ear, waiting. Robin runs his thumb along the back of one of the kitchen chairs, smooth wood beneath his skin. "John, it's Regina. Did you send Robin here for the spare keys?" She looks at him then, a smirk tugging at her lips, something wicked and dark about it before she says, "Oh, it's fine. I was already awake." He expects her to continue, to tell John exactly why and how she was rudely awakened this morning, but she doesn't. She simply, "Mmhmm"s and says, "Of course," and then, "Enjoy the rest of your trip," and "Goodbye."

As she hangs up, Robin sighs softly, and murmurs, "Thank you. I'll tell him what happened, but… thank you regardless."

She's rummaging in one of the kitchen drawers, pulling out a simple keychain with two shiny gold keys attached and holding them out for him.

"Goodbye, Robin," she tells him, as he lifts his hand to take the keys from her.

Right. She's been more than hospitable and it's time for him to get out.

Still, he can't help saying to her, "If you need anything, I'm just down the street."

"Excellent," she smiles, a vicious little baring of teeth. "If I need someone to get drunk, break into my home, frighten my son and throw up in my bathroom, I know just who to call."

"Right," he mutters, his stomach burning with shame, because she's right, she's absolutely right, what she must think of him (has every right to think of it). He lifts the half-full mug still gripped in his other hand and murmurs, "I'll get this back to you shortly. The coffee is excellent, by the way. Thank you."

"I know," she tells him primly, staring him down from her place at the counter, unmoving, unbending.

Robin heads for the door, heads for John's, and sleeps the rest of the day away.


	2. Chapter 2

Robin wakes again in the late afternoon, and still feels like utter shit.

He needs to drink something other than that tumbler of black coffee, probably ought to put some proper food in his belly. And he needs a shower, he thinks with a grimace and a whiff of himself, dearly hoping that he smelled at least somewhat better at six o'clock this morning when he was sprawled on the neighbor's sofa.

The shower will probably do him the most good, he thinks, so he peels himself from his bed and trudges down the hall to the bathroom, cranking the shower on hot and then running the tap cold and scooping up palmful after palmful of water into his mouth. He brushes his teeth, stares at his miserable face in the mirror as he does.

_How did I get here?_ he wonders. Not too long ago, just a few years, he'd been a reasonably successful man - well, not successful, exactly, but getting by well enough. He'd had his music, had been fronting his own band with semi-regular gigs, and had his day job to really pay the bills. And he'd had Marian. Had had her smiles and her passion and her bright mind, and the softness of her skin pressed against him at night.

And then his band had dissolved, and Marian had turned up pregnant, and over time it seemed they'd grown apart. If he's honest, he has to admit things had not been good, even before the burglary came to light. Maybe even before the layoffs had left him jobless and dependent on her income to keep them afloat. They'd done more fighting than fucking, it seemed. More bickering than flirting or kindness.

There's a small part of him that thinks maybe it's for the best, this separation, maybe he's no good for her anymore. Not if he can't provide, not if he can't pull himself up by his bootstraps and be a man. Better for her, anyway. But without her, without Roland… look at what he's turned into.

A drunk, penniless, haggard-looking fool.

It stops today, he decides, spitting minty froth into the sink, and then looking his reflection in the eyes.

"This is the worst day of your life," he tells himself. "You will do better now. You will be a better man. For him, and for her. You will be a man deserving of them. Starting right now."

Robin cleans himself up - shaves and showers, fixes himself the single egg left in the fridge, and washes it down with the last of the juice.

He thinks to call Marian again, to try to see his son tonight, but when he finds his cell phone in his coat pocket, it's completely dead. The set of spare keys he'd gotten from Regina Mills tumbles out of the pocket and down to the floor, and he realizes it doesn't matter that the phone is dead - he's no car and no keys anyway. Not at the moment.

With a sigh, he slings the coat on, and heads back out into the chill to retrieve them.

**.::.**

Regina is sitting in the chair next to her front window, turning the pages of a book she's not entirely sure is worth continuing to read. This is what she gets for buying things based on the pretty packaging, she thinks, sighing and finally closing the book, letting her hand rest over the deceptively alluring cover. It's always a disappointment – finding out something that seemed so pleasant on the surface is so low-quality underneath.

_Case in point_, she thinks, glancing out the window just in time to see her early-morning home invader trudge by, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, head ducked down. This is how she's used to seeing him - through screen and glass, and from feet away, where he looks on the surface like he might be intriguing underneath. But up close, under the surface, well… Her bathroom still smells vaguely of sweat and vomit, heavily clobbered with the scent of the apple-spice candle she's been burning in there since he left.

He reaches for the collar of his coat, pulls it higher around his neck, and she wonders why he doesn't have a scarf (doesn't have gloves, either, and the wind has picked up, is blowing the bare branches back and forth on the trees that line their block).

Then Henry asks if she'll look over his book report, and she stops wondering about the man and his cold neck altogether.

**.::.**

The bar is open, but not busy, Baltimore isn't playing today, and so the collection of people staring up at the TVs broadcasting the latest sports game is small. Underwhelming.

Robin is grateful for it – less of an audience to his shame, and no need to shout at the bartender to be heard.

He slinks up to the edge of the bar, and waits as he watches the man pull a beer. It's the same bartender as last night - August, he thinks his name was, although he can't really be certain. There had been a lot of whiskey between then and now, and Robin has foggy, empty patches of time he cannot truly recall. He studies the other man as he waits: dark hair, stubbled cheeks and a friendly smile (important for a barman) for the girl he's currently serving. Robin imagines he will not spare the same kind smile for him, but he'll find out soon enough.

August (is it August?), turns from his customer and makes his way toward Robin, wiping down a wet ring on the bar as he goes. He limps just slightly; Robin hadn't remembered that.

When he gets within a foot of Robin, he simply says, "You're back," and it startles him a little – he hadn't realized that the bartender even knew he was there.

"I am," he says, and then, "If I could get my keys…"

The man looks at him for a minute, his face unreadable, and then he turns and reaches for a plain white envelope, tucked next to the cash register.

"Here you are, Prince of Thieves," he tells him, almost smiling, like they share some sort of secret, and Robin has a flash of memory, of running his mouth about how perhaps Robin Hood had the right idea, you know, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor, he was poor, he could use some damned riches, and it wasn't as though those rich sons of bitches were missing them any, and barman, pour me another, why don't you?

He feels his ears go hot with mortification and reaches for the envelope, hears his keys jingle as they slide around inside, but there's something else in there, he can feel something rigid against his fingertips. He slips open the flap of the envelope to find keys, and his bank card. Christ, he hadn't even realized he was missing that.

And slipped alongside there, a receipt.

His bill from the night before, he realizes with a heavy swallow, pulling it out and staring at it. Had he really had _that much_ to drink? What had he been thinking? He could have gone to the liquor store and bought twice the booze for half the price, drowned his sorrows at home and saved himself the sea of embarrassment he's been swimming in for every waking moment of the day.

"Your card was declined," August tells him coolly, and Robin nods slightly, mutters that that sounds about right.

He's absolutely skint, has no way to pay off this tab.

And the man must know that, but still he stands there, expectantly. Waiting.

Robin looks at the bar, at his own hands as they clutch keys and card, then he looks up, and admits, "I've no money; I lost my job."

"So you told me," August tells him, and Robin wonders how exactly a man can look so cordial but make him feel like such shit at the same time.

"I could work it off?" he offers, because he's got nothing else to give. Doesn't have anything left to barter, and cannot borrow money from John (again), because he's not yet home. "I'll wash glasses, or sweep floors. Whatever your boss wants."

"I am the boss," August tells him, and of course he is, why wouldn't he be. The other man looks him up and down, appraising, Robin thinks, and then he says, "I know you can toss back a drink - or twelve. But can you pour one?"

Robin nods, tells him, "Yes, of course. I'm shit with mixed drinks, but…"

August nods, tells him that's fine. "One of my bartenders just quit, and I'm not looking forward to the thought of covering all her shifts. You pull beers, you pour shots, you wipe down the counters and you keep your fingers out of the till. If it's even at the end of the night, I'll even tip you out. Work through the weekend and we're square. Deal?"

It'll save the man more in wages than Robin owes, but he doesn't care. It's honest work – a fair bit better than scrubbing plates or wiping floors, and the prospect of _tips_, of actual dollars with which to buy things like gas for the car, or a belated birthday present for Roland… He doesn't dare think his luck might be turning around, but it's a brief reprieve from the constant downward spiral of late.

"Yes, deal," he tells August, and "_Thank you_."

August jerks his thumb backward, and tells him, "You start now. Get to work."

By closing time, Robin has learned how to pull a proper pint (his first few had a bit too much head, but he's got the hang of it now), knows the ins and outs of the register, and has had a cursory lesson in mixing some of the simpler drinks. He drives home, spends the few dollars of tips August deigned to dole out tonight on putting a bit more gas in his car, and then collapses into bed.


	3. Chapter 3

"I just can't shake the feeling that there's something going on that I don't know about."

"Something like what? An affair?"

Regina pours her coffee, mixes in a dollop of half-and-half. It's a luxury she tells herself she can afford - she doesn't spend an hour running hills on the treadmill in her home office four nights a week just so she can grey down her dark roast with watery skim milk, or worse - the soy that Kathryn is currently emptying into her own mug.

It's Monday morning, just past ten – time for their usual coffee break and weekend catch-up. There's not much to share these days, not for Regina at least, but Kathryn is in the midst of what she keeps calling a "rough patch" in her marriage. Her husband David has been distant, moody, they're "not connecting," and so every Monday morning for the last three weeks, Regina has been treated to Kathryn's anxious fretting over what it could mean, what she should do.

And since Kathryn is the best friend Regina has here at The Blanchard Group, she listens gamely, tries to be supportive, but honest.

"No, no," Kathryn tells her, shaking her head, and sending her soft blonde waves bouncing. Her brow is pinched, her mouth tightened into a scowl. "Nothing like that. I just…" She sighs, glances down into her mug, and finishes, "I just wish he'd tell me what's going on in that head of his."

"Have you tried asking?" Regina asks with a quirk of her brow, lifting her own mug to her lips and leaving a berry-red lipstick print on the rim.

Kathryn gives her a look and mutters, "No, because that would be too logical and straightforward." Regina smirks. "But enough about me and David, what about you? Anything exciting happen this weekend?"

Regina scoffs, shakes her head slightly, runs her thumb along the handle of her mug, and tells her, "Just a little friendly home invasion."

Kathryn's jaw falls open, her eyes going wide, a "What?!" forming on her lips just as their breakroom solitude is interrupted.

"It was nothing," Regina dismisses quickly with a wave of her hand, offering a polite smile to their new arrival as he closes the gap between them and reaches up into the cupboard for a mug of his own, encroaching just a bit into her personal space. Regina shifts a few inches to the side to accommodate as she finishes with, "Just a neighbor who ended up in the wrong house by accident," and "Good morning, Sidney."

Sidney Glass has worked at Blanchard for three years less than Regina, but has still managed to overcome the pitfalls of his lack of seniority and get in good with the boss – a fact that would grate more on Regina and her eight years of hard work for the company if it weren't for the fact that Sidney, well… He likes her. Quite a bit. Likes to talk to her (and he's intelligent and cultured, well-read, so she doesn't mind that so terribly much), likes to look at her (his gaze has just swept down from her face, quickly tracked the lines of her vest, her crisp white button-down, her well-tailored black slacks and high heels, and it's not her favorite thing - the ogling he tries and fails not to be obvious about - but he never makes the inappropriate comments that Leo occasionally lets slip, so she'll allow it), but most of all, he likes to work with her. Likes her ideas, likes the way her mind works, likes the way she strategizes the best way to turn every client toward their favor.

Which means when he decides to go after the big fish - like the cosmetics company behind True Love's Kiss perfume and their many, many lucrative ad dollars - he's more than happy to request her presence on his team and share his commissions. Would she rather get the account on merit and seniority? Yes, of course, but it's a competitive company, and she'll take a break wherever she can get it.

So she smiles at Sidney, and doesn't comment on the way he checks her out, and when he meets her gaze and says his hello to her (ignores Kathryn completely) before asking about this misplaced neighbor incident, she is perfectly polite in the way she downplays the subject.

"It was nothing, really. Hardly worth mentioning."

Sometimes honey does really draw more flies than vinegar.

"As long as you're safe," Sidney says to her, full of kind concern.

Before she can assure him that she is, of course she is, they're interrupted.

"If you three are done chatting like little old ladies, there's a meeting we're all supposed to be headed to."

_Speaking of vinegar…_, Regina thinks, her gaze swinging toward the break room door where Mallory Fischer has just poked her head in to berate them all for their imaginary sloth. Mal is sharp - the only woman at the company with more years than Regina, and she didn't get them by being a wallflower. She is bold, sassy, with a penchant for vampy dark colors even in the gauzy days of spring, long blonde hair that is usually pulled back (sometimes a sleek pony, but today a tight bun). They've been in friendly (is it friendly? Regina isn't always sure) competition since the day Regina arrived here, and if she's honest with herself (and Regina likes to think she is), she owes quite a bit of her ruthless determination and success to following Mal's example.

"We're on our way," Kathryn tells her, a hint of frost in her usually kind voice (the competition between Mal and Kathryn is decidedly _not_ friendly).

"Good."

Mal turns to walk away and as she does, Regina can see that the dress she's wearing today (simple, solid black, from boat-neck to knees) is nearly backless, revealing the head of the massive dragon tattoo that adorns her back, a lick of flame curling up her spine.

Regina rolls her eyes, and mutters something about Mal's flair for the dramatics before heading for the door after her.

**.::.**

"You did _what?_" John asks him, and Robin lets out a heavy sigh as he loads his dirty clothes into the washer.

"You heard me the first time," he grumbles, because he had, damnit, and Robin is loathe to repeat it.

"You _broke into_ that poor woman's home?" John's eyebrows are nearly to his hairline, his thick arms crossed over his chest. This is clearly not the news he was expecting to come home to, and why in the world would it be? It's absolutely ridiculous, what Robin has done.

"Yes, John, yes, I did," Robin confirms, giving Tuck a gentle shove when he tries to worm his way into the already tight space. "Although I'd hardly call her a 'poor woman.' She's no wilting flower, that one."

"That's no excu–"

"Damnit, John, I know it's no excuse," Robin exclaims, frustrated and tired, and dizzy from spending the first part of his day attempting to memorize the different drink recipes he'd been staring at on the Internet since he woke at noon. "I'm a mess, alright. I know it. I missed my son's birthday because his mother doesn't think I'm fit to parent him, couldn't even get him a gift because I've barely a cent to my name, I broke into a woman's home in the dead of night, heaved my guts up in her guest bathroom and then had to slink out of the place in front of her _son_–"

"Jesus, Henry saw you like that?"

"Then had to _go back there_ and ask for keys to get into my own home - no, not mine, _yours_, because I've been good and well kicked out of mine, haven't I? Had to go get your keys from her because mine were still back at the sodding bar where they'd been taken off me when I was cut off for being a horrible, stinking drunk. So yes, John, yes, I know. There's no excuse for the way I've been of late, and if you think I'm not mortified down to my very toes, well…" He loses steam then, lets out a heavy exhale and shuts the washer door with a bang, stowing away the laundry soap with hands that shake with frustration and self-loathing. He finishes lamely, "...you'd be wrong."

"Robin, I love you like a brother, and you can stay here as long as you need, but you have to get yourself together."

"I know."

"I mean it–"

"I _know_, John," Robin insists again, looking at the man and gentling his voice. "I know. And I'm going to try – I _am_ trying. Starting now, starting yesterday."

"Starting with a job, maybe?" John suggests, but he does it with a sort of guilty grimace, like he doesn't want to prod, but perhaps the charity of floating Robin for the last near-month isn't something he'd like to sustain.

Robin leans against the washer and frowns. "I'm working down at the Rabbit Hole this week," he admits, and John's face brightens slightly, his brow lifting with interest. Robin holds up a hand and tells him, "For free. To…" He sighs. "To pay off my tab from the other night, but the bar owner said he'll split tips, so that's something at least, and I'm hoping that if I can do a good job, perhaps he'll throw something my way. Even if it's just a shift now and then when they're short. If not…" He shakes his head, drops his palms to grip at the front edge of the washer and concedes, "I'll start looking for work in earnest next week."

"Good," John nods and then he asks, "Do I need to apologize to Regina?"

"No. I did that already, quite a few times." Robin tightens his grip against the cool metal, releases it. "The boy wants to come play with the dog," he tells him. "She said he can't unless you're home." He looks at John, grimaces, and states the obvious: "I'm afraid I left her with a rather poor impression of me."

John snorts a laugh at that, shaking his head and clapping Robin on the back. Ah, there he is, the John Robin is used to. The friendly oaf of a man who buoys his spirits like no other friend he's had.

"I can't imagine why," John taunts him, and then he's dropping his hand and heading into the kitchen, calling backward, "Do you have time for a meal before your indentured servitude? I could order pizza."

He does, but barely. It's half three already, and he's due to the bar to start work at half four (probably should have thought of that before he started his washing, but John is home now to switch the loads, he supposes) and still needs to shower and dress and make himself presentable for the public.

But a bit of pizza does sound good, and his stomach is empty, rumbling, and so he agrees and follows after John.

**.::.**

The rest of the week goes better for Robin - remarkably well, in fact. It turns out that when he's sober, and cleaned up, and highly motivated, he makes quite a good bartender. By Wednesday night, August has let him graduate from pulling beers and pouring simple drinks (who cannot handle a rum and Coke, after all?) to the more complicated shots and cocktails. Some of them, anyhow – the ones he's managed to memorize over the past few days.

Not only that, but Robin is good-looking and friendly, has his own kind barman smile, which means he brings in good tips, from the female clients in particular. And his till is always, always spot on (he's decent at math, but really it's the promise of being tipped out for accuracy, the idea that he might be able to buy something for Roland's birthday after all, or be the one to pay for pizza with John this weekend that makes him extra cautious with his bills).

August is impressed, and on Saturday night (Sunday morning, really) as they clean up and close up, he looks at Robin and tells him as much. "I have to admit, when you walked in here on Sunday night, I thought this proposition might turn out to be a disaster, but you've… you've done really well."

Robin smiles, cannot help himself. It's the first thing he feels as if he's done well in quite some time. He turns his face down, focuses on the bottles he's straightening on the shelf behind them, and says his thank you.

After a moment, August speaks again. A statement, not a question: "You really want this job, don't you."

Robin pauses, looks up. August is leaning against the bar, arms crossed, face placid. A white envelope grasped loosely in one hand.

"I do," Robin admits. "It's decent money, and I like talking to people. And I really, really need work of some kind. If you'd be willing to hire me in earnest, I'd be more than happy to take the position."

"You'd be the new guy," August warns him. "You'd get all the shifts nobody wants. Ruby has been begging to swap out of her Monday and Tuesday nights–"

"I'll take anything," Robin tells him, cutting him off with a shake of his head. "If you're offering actual paid work, I will take anything. Just tell me when to be here, and I will be."

August nods slowly, studies Robin some more. "Don't fuck up. You fuck up, you're gone."

Robin feels a flood of relief - because the threat of being gone means that first he gets to be hired, and thank Christ for that.

"I won't," he swears.

"Then I'll see you Monday afternoon," August tells him, and Robin frowns at that. He's supposed to be back tonight, had promised August every day this week, even the ones he had coverage for (had spent Thursday night refilling water glasses and bussing tables and sweeping floors while Ruby worked the bar).

"Monday?" he questions, and August nods, holds out that envelope he'd been holding. "You work here now; you get a day off."

Robin takes the envelope and lifts the flap; it's flush with cash - his tips, he thinks, but then he sees one end stacked with larger bills. Far more than he'd expected. His forehead wrinkles, brows rising. "We made this much tonight?"

"No. That's your tips for the night, plus your shift pay for the last week – minus that bottle you drank on Saturday night."

Robin blinks, stares at the cash. He's holding a week's pay in his hand. A week's pay he never expected to be getting.

"We'll do your paperwork on Monday, and you'll start getting actual checks after that, but I figure if you're working here, you're working here. And I've gotten the impression you could use the money."

"Yes," Robin tells him, a bit shocked and still trying to recover. "Yes, thank you." He looks at August then, tells him with conviction he desperately hopes he can live up to. "You won't regret this."

"I hope not," August mutters, as he turns to finish closing everything up.

Robin leaves that night with a lightness he hasn't felt in weeks. No, in months. Not since that sodding layoff, since the day he'd had to come home from work and tell Marian he wasn't going to be going back.

Finally, for the first time in months, he has a _job_.

He has an envelope full of actual money, enough to do more than top off his gas tank, and he prioritizes its use as he drives home: a gift for Roland, first thing; a load of groceries for himself and John after that; and if he can spare a bit more, perhaps a proper apology is owed to a certain neighbor.

**.::.**

Regina's week doesn't go so spectacularly.

Oh sure, she's officially on the True Love's Kiss account with Sidney, and it's looking to be lucrative as hell - for which she's grateful. But there had been Henry's bout of the twenty-four hour stomach flu on Wednesday, and her own queasy version of it all day Friday. She's fairly certain she'll never eat another everything bagel with scallion cream cheese again - probably shouldn't have had it in the first place, to be honest. Too many carbs. Her mother would call its sudden reappearance into the company toilets both a karmic punishment and a gift she ought to appreciate - but then, she's not Cora, and much like her daily splash of half-and-half, the office's Friday morning bagel ritual is something Regina has always tried to tell herself she's allowed, even earned.

So there had been that, and then there had been the phone call from said mother on Saturday afternoon.

"Regina, dear," Cora had said to her, in that _way_ that she does, warm and affectionate and so often a precursor to words that cut like knives. This time, it hadn't been veiled insults, but bold guilt-tripping instead. "We never see you. Your father and I were thinking that maybe we should come by. I know how proud you always say you are of that little house you have."

Every now and then (more often than she ought to), Regina edits Cora's words on the fly, reimagines them the way they ought to be said - if they were kinder, or more honest. _Regina, dear, we miss you. Why don't we come over and see the home you're so proud of. _But in all honesty, _Regina, I've run out of things to badger you about. Let me lower myself to come pick at some new aspect of the decor you've used to try to mask the utter hovel you're living in and claim to like._

But it's Mother, and she doesn't take no for an answer. And it's Daddy, and she really does miss him. So she'd agreed, of course she had, and now she has to spend the next week planning a meal that is healthy but delicious, classy but easy enough to make. And she'll have to clean the place top to bottom, and she should probably buy some flowers (tulips, but not lilies; or roses – but red, not the white Regina herself has been fond of lately). Maybe she'll order a few bouquets, one for the side table in the living room, one for the dining table, a small clutch of flowers for the downstairs powder room... And she should clean out the old magazines on the shelf under the coffee table - her mother will comment on anything even remotely out of season.

This is what she's fretting over on Sunday night – what has her tapping a pen against her lip as she scribbles a to-do list of tasks to accomplish over the next week – when the doorbell rings.

Regina frowns, sets aside her pad and pen and walks the handful of feet to the doorway.

To say she's surprised at the visitor on the other side of the door is an understatement: she'd become increasingly convinced she'd never see Robin or her travel mug ever again.

But there he is, standing in the glow of her porch light, a bouquet of flowers in one hand - stargazer lilies, she has to give him points for originality, even if they do look a little past their prime, like they won't make it more than a day or two before they wilt - and a large gift bag in the other.

Regina leans slightly into the doorway, filling the entire gap as she lifts one brow in derisive question. "Gifts and flowers?"

"Flowers to apologize for my inexcusably atrocious behavior a week ago," he explains, and oh, he's a far cry from rumpled and whiskey-bathed tonight. He's bright-eyed, his beard neatly trimmed, smiling softly at her, dimples winking, and she remembers again why she'd thought he was so attractive before. "And your mug," he adds, lifting his other hand slightly.

He looks appropriately contrite, and decides she rather likes that he gave her a few days before he came sniffing around like a scolded puppy, so she softens just a little, and admits, "The breaking in was inexcusable, the throwing up was probably unavoidable considering just how much you seemed to have had to drink, but your behavior _otherwise_ was… not atrocious. For a drunken burglar you were pretty polite."

He tilts his head a little, his brow furrowing curiously. He's trying to read her, and she's not giving much away.

But his polite smile widens into something a little bit warmer and she feels her cheeks tug up in answer before she can help it, looking quickly away, down, forcing her face into something more serious again.

She catches sight of the gift bag as she does and points out, "That's awfully big for a travel mug."

It's several times too large, and there's something in it, a box bulging the sides a bit.

His smile goes sheepish again and he holds the bag out to her, tells her, "There's also a home security system, to keep tossers like me from breaking in unnoticed again. It's secondhand and nothing fancy, but it'll wake you if need be."

Regina finds herself oddly touched by the gesture, reaching out a tentative hand to take the bag from him. Truth be told, his little stunt has had her rattled. She's been checking and double checking the locks on every window and door at night, has stiffened slightly at some of the louder shifts and creaks of the old house. Has been thinking of getting something just like this, for that very reason.

"I can install it for you," he offers. "I used to do it for a living, with the fancier models. I figure it's the least I can I do."

She should tell him no, has absolutely no reason to invite him into her home again (surely, the thing comes with an instruction manual, and Regina is hardly the type of doe-eyed damsel who needs a man to rescue her from the woeful confusion of the mysterious world of electronics). But it seems like a fit form of penance for his crimes against her, and frankly, if she shuts the door on him now, she'll just end up back in that chair, fretting over dinner.

So against her better judgement (and maybe just a little bit because those hopeful blue eyes are _doing_ _things_ to her insides), she smiles, and nods, and steps back to let him in out of the cold.


	4. Chapter 4

Robin had approached 5802 Mifflin Street with a feeling he could only describe as hopeful dread. He hadn't been terribly optimistic that he would meet a warm reception, even with his sad bouquet and second-hand gift. So to have earned what he thinks is an honest, albeit slight, smile and an invitation back into her home seems quite an accomplishment.

But now that he's inside, she's frowning slightly, setting down the sack with the security system in it and reaching for the flowers.

"Let me get those in some water," she tells him as he passes the blooms into her grasp. "You just… wait here."

Robin nods and stuffs his hands into his pockets now that they're free, taking her brief absence to get a good look at her house now he's not blearily hungover.

The inside of her home is lovely. All dark, restored hardwoods and white-painted wainscoting. The rest of the walls are in deep, rich hues. Dark, dusky blues in the living room, and soothing kelly greens in the entry hall and headed up the stairs. There's a table right next to the door with her keys resting upon it, and two neat stacks of mail (her name behind the plastic window of an envelope atop one, her return address on the pale blue greeting card that tops the other). Above that is a small mirror that shows his own reflection, and beyond it the hall that runs beside the stairway and clear to the back of the house. He knows the layout of her place - it's the same as his own with John, after all, and he wonders what she uses that back room for. The one beyond the stairs, near to the rear door. For him and John, it's a bit of a rubbish collector, but he can't imagine Regina has such a thing in her immaculately clean home.

Wandering into the living room, he takes in the austere sense of design - modern pieces of furniture in sleek grey upholstery, white vases spilling with flowers, a small table flanked by two arm chairs that seem much more traditional in style, something almost throne-like about them, but they've clearly been restored and reupholstered, with the end result the same neutral modern flair. There's an upright piano along one wall, and a fireplace nearby to it (gas, he guesses, as the same wall in his own place is decked out with IKEA furniture and a large television with not a chimney to be found). On the wall above, a triptych of black and white photos of horses. On the mantel, a neat arrangement of photos of her boy. As a chubby-cheeked babe all the way to his most recent school photo. And on the end, a much younger Regina, he thinks, on a boat somewhere, perhaps a sailboat, bright sun on her face and an even brighter smile. Her hair had been longer then, and whipped about by the wind, blowing into her face, but she's still stunningly beautiful. It's no surprise that the man in the photo with her, one with an easy smile and dark hair, light eyes, looks absolutely besotted with the woman he has his arms wrapped around.

He doesn't get much further into his casual perusal before Regina is walking back into the room, clutching another white vase filled with the lilies he'd brought. He thinks he sees her hesitate as she walks toward him, but he can't be certain.

"Thank you for these," she tells him, her tone cool and even as she sets the flowers on the very center of the coffee table. She's not quite made up her mind about him yet, he can tell. And fair enough - her experience with him so far has been rather dismal.

"Is this your boy's father?" he asks, pointing to the photo he's been looking at.

Her hands flutter, rising as if they want to cross but not quite making it there, one hand hovering near her belly while the other drops back to her side. Then she simply tells him, "Yes."

"I can see the resemblance," he murmurs. "There's only one photo of him? Must be half a dozen here of your boy."

"He died," she tells him shortly, and Robin cringes internally. He should've thought of that before he opened his gob and stuck his boot in it. No wonder her expression has been so pinched since she returned to the room and caught him looking at the photo.

"I'm so sorry to hear that," Robin tells her sincerely, because he cannot imagine the deep pain of a permanent loss of someone like that, a lover, a parent to your child.

"It's alright. It was a long time ago." She reaches for the photo, pulls it down and studies it as if she hasn't paid it much mind in a while. Robin watches her fingertip trace down the edge of the frame.

"How old was - Henry, is it?" He remembers the boy introducing himself during his absolute misery of a hangover, but he can't be certain he'd heard anything properly through the pulsing pain in his skull.

"Yes, Henry," she says with a small smile, but one tight with old pain. A long time ago, perhaps, but she still clearly feels the loss of this man keenly. "He wasn't born yet when Daniel passed. He, uh… He never got to meet him." How awful, the thinks, trying to imagine for a moment raising Roland without him ever having known Marian, and how heart-wrenching it would be. Tries to imagine what it would be like to know a child was coming and to be all alone, to wake by yourself for all those early sleepless nights, to change every diaper on your own, to have no one to commiserate with about the less than glamorous parts of child-rearing. But then, he doesn't know that she was alone, now does he? He doesn't know her at all. He's just here because he's made a colossal ass of himself, and a mess of his life, and making amends with Regina Mills is another step on his path toward something that resembles his normal life. The life he wants to get back. This isn't a social call, and they're not friends.

As such, he's unsurprised when she clears her throat, changes the subject. "So, how long is it going to take to install this thing?"

**.::.**

He's thrown her off-balance, and not for the first time.

Regina had disappeared into the kitchen for a whole two minutes - had left him in the foyer and returned to find him picking at deep wounds. Daniel. She's used to people asking, to them wondering about Henry's father, but being used to it doesn't do much to dull the ache of the chasm left behind in the wake of her fiancé's death. It's been years - ten and change - since the car accident, but she still misses him. Still wonders, often, how life might be different if it had been the three of them instead of the two of them. The way it was supposed to be, the way they'd planned (they hadn't planned on Henry, but he had been a welcome surprise - a hiccup at that early stage of her career, but they would manage). They'd still be in Boston, she thinks. She'd be farther from the clutches of her mother, and would not be the one solely responsible for things like parent-teacher conferences, and making sure that Henry is upstairs in his room like he is right now, nose dutifully in a book so he can earn another check on his Daily Reading Chart.

And maybe she wouldn't be the one standing here overseeing the security of their home, might be reading a book herself or running on her treadmill while Daniel dealt with the drunk who'd broken in a week ago and come to pay penance.

"A bit," he tells her with a mild shrug. "It's a wireless system, so there are sensors for the doors, the windows, some motion sensors to place around. You'll have to decide where you want the control panel - near one of the doors somewhere, so you can disarm it quickly when you arrive home."

Regina nods, sets the picture of herself and Daniel back on the mantel, and says, "Henry always comes in the front when he gets home from school; it should probably go there."

"Alright," Robin agrees. "We'll sensor both doors, and I'd suggest the main floor windows. Certainly the side one and the back room - they're the easiest to access from outside. A motion sensor could do here in the living room, and one in the kitchen. It's not terribly likely that someone would be able to get into the house from the upstairs - they'd have to climb the porch and risk being spotted - more than likely with that streetlamp out front and Granny Lucas nosing around across the way-" (Regina chuckles. Granny Lucas is a kind, older lady, if a bit gruff, and she's apparently appointed herself as the local neighborhood watch now that she's retired and spending more time at home. Regina thinks she just likes to entertain herself with any sordid details of the comings and goings of their little neighborhood.) "-or somehow scale sheer brick to get in the sides. No point to that when there are main floor windows that are much easier to get into. But you can sensor those rooms as well if it makes you feel more comfortable - there's enough there to do it."

He sounds… smart, she thinks. Knowledgeable. Intelligent. She wonders what he's like when he's not drunk and irresponsible. What this Robin is like. The one who is moving back into her foyer and pulling the security system from the gift bag. The one who smells like soap and cologne instead of whiskey and vomit, who is shrugging out of his coat (hanging it on the end of her banister instead of the coat hooks just a few feet away) to reveal a navy blue henley and jeans, neither rumpled from a night of sleep on her sofa.

He glances over at her to ask if it's alright to put the control panel just there on the wall to the right of the window, and as she tells him yes, that's fine, she has the absent thought that the blue of his shirt brings out the blue of his eyes.

She blinks.

_Snap out of it, Regina_, she thinks. However attractive he may be (those dimples, God, they're flashing at her as he gives her a smile), he's still a loser. Not someone worth her time. Not someone she should allow herself to be at all _attracted_ to.

But then she reminds herself that there's no harm in looking… Just looking. For purely aesthetic enjoyment. She has no intention of pursuing him, but she could certainly… appreciate him. So as he bends to open the box at his feet, she allows herself a moment to admire the shape of his bicep, the line of his jaw, his-shit, he's talking to her.

Regina lifts her brows and asks, "Hmm?"

**.::.**

Robin turns his head to look at her for moment, prompted by her distracted query, and he's struck for a moment by just how beautiful she is. It's a Sunday, not a workday for any normal person, and he doesn't imagine it was one for her, but she still looks sleek and polished. She's in jeans, a snug dark wash, and a forest green button-down shirt that must be silk. Her face is perfectly painted, berry lips and long lashes, and brows he's sure are perfectly waxed and shaped, presently raised in slight confusion. She'd completely missed what he just said to her.

Tuning him out already. Lovely. This should be a fun evening.

Still, she's… God, stunning. He shouldn't think like that, not if he intends to work things out with Marian - and he does intend to. He intends to put right everything he'd let be torn asunder in the last few months, but right now, in this moment, with the rich scent of her perfume hovering around like a cloud and her perfectly manicured fingers lifting to fiddle with the modest pendant that hangs around her neck, he takes a moment to appreciate her beauty.

And then he repeats what he'd said to her moments before: "I said you have a lovely home."

She frowns, brow furrowing slightly. "You saw it a week ago."

"Well, I wasn't in much of a fit state to really take it all in then," he admits with a guilty grimace, and her frown melts, transforms into a smirk - a bit on the judgy side, he thinks, but a smirk nonetheless.

"No, I suppose you weren't," she drawls, and then she's shaking her head, disturbing the dark locks that just graze her shoulders. "Tell me," she begins, crossing her arms and leaning against the banister, crossing one bare foot over the other (her toes are painted the same green as her shirt, and he finds he's not surprised in the least to find her so ridiculously coordinated. Oh what it must be like to have one's life in such ruthless order that there's time to match your polish to your clothes every day). "What exactly is it that inspires a man to drink so much he commits an accidental B-and-E?"

Robin stills for a moment, then exhales. He supposes he should have seen that question coming. But how in the world can he answer it?

**.::.**

Maybe she shouldn't have asked, Regina thinks mildly, as she watches his shoulders deflate, watches him meticulously unpack pieces from the box for a few moments in silence.

When he finally confesses the reason, she almost feels bad for bringing it up: "It was my son's birthday, and I didn't get to see him." His voice is quiet. Low. She thinks it might be self-loathing she hears there, or maybe shame. Two emotions she's not entirely unfamiliar with. "I haven't seen him for several weeks, actually. So I threw myself a right pity party over it. Open bar."

"You have a son?" she asks, because she wouldn't have guessed that. Hasn't seen any evidence of it in the weeks he's lived here, but then he did just say he hasn't been able to see him. She wonders what he did, wonders why.

"I do," he nods, looking up at her with a smile and then standing, moving toward her and pointing to the coat behind her back with a rise of his brows that's meant to ask permission to reach for it. Regina stands fully and steps to the side, lets him dig around in his pocket until he unearths his cell phone. He swipes his thumb across it several times and then turns it toward her to reveal a picture of him with a toddler, a little boy maybe two or three, she guesses, with a riot of loose, dark curls on his head and dimples to match his daddy's. Regina's grin is instant and insuppressible. "That's Roland."

She reaches for the phone on impulse, their fingers brushing (his cool against the warmth of hers) as she cradles it in her hands and draws it away, closer to her view. "He's going to be a heartbreaker," she murmurs, chuckling softly.

"Oh, he already is," Robin assures her, smiling now (he has a nice smile, wide and friendly, straight white teeth - why is she even noticing this?). "There's two little girls in his daycare who fight over him."

She hands the phone back over and he tucks it away again, turns back to his task – or means to, but then she asks, "So, what did you do wrong?"

He pauses, turns to look at her with a frown. "Pardon?"

"You haven't seen him in weeks," she reminds. "Weren't allowed to see him on his birthday. She's pissed at you."

It's a safe assumption to make - that if he's been cut off from his son, if he's living here with a friend, he's done something to royally incense the mother of his child.

And he proves her right when he admits, "Yes. Yes, she is."

He bends back to the box, then, finally, and Regina thinks maybe she shouldn't pry, but what else are they going to talk about? Books? Current events? Not likely.

"So. What did you do?"

She watches his shoulders expand and then deflate, and then he's glancing up at her quickly and then back down before admitting, "I broke the law."

Oh.

Well.

That's...

Regina had relaxed back into her former position against the banister, but she straightens now, stiffens. So he's not just a drunken idiot, he's also a criminal.

Maybe she shouldn't have let him in here again after all.

**.::.**

It had been a calculated risk, making that admission.

He's not a citizen, is just here on his green card, could easily be sent back and never see his child unless Marian deigned to bring Roland across the pond for a visit. But then, she'd have to have some sort of evidence of what he's done, more than just a confession he's broken the law, so he figures he's safe with what he said.

He doesn't like this line of questioning though - wouldn't like it from anyone, as it drags up mountains of shame and guilt and self-loathing, but dislikes it especially from her, considering her family is the one he committed said crime against.

But she doesn't know that. They don't know that.

So he just keeps his head down. He's not sure he wants to see her reaction. He's not sure he should have said anything in the first place. He's not sure, now, that he should even be here. That he should ever have come back here. That he should ever speak to her again.

But he's promised to install this security system, and install it he shall - so she'll be safe. (There's a great irony in there somewhere, he thinks - that he's somehow putting himself in charge of her safety despite using his access and expertise to override a system not so different from this one and burglarize her parents. Christ, what is he even doing here?)

"Was it a violent crime?"

Her voice disrupts his self-scolding, carefully cool and controlled.

Robin looks up at her then, scowling slightly as he assures her, "No. No, it wasn't that."

She nods slowly, her lips pursed. Then gives a follow-up: "Did anyone get hurt?"

"No," he tells her, makes sure to meet her eyes and hopes she can see the honesty in his. He may be a criminal, he may have done something that blew his whole life apart, but he doesn't think he's a dangerous man. Doesn't want her to think so either. The last thing he wants is for her to feel threatened in her own home. By him. Again.

"Alright then," she murmurs, taking in a deep breath and then letting it out. "I don't think I want to know."

He nods, and looks back to his work, sorting out the sensors for the various rooms. Her not knowing is fine by him. Excellent, in fact.

But something has shifted in the room. There's a tension in the air. A heaviness. A weight.

Silence stretches between them for several long minutes, thick and suffocating. He moves to attach the sensor to the front door and she stays where she is near the stairs. Unmoving. Just watching. He can practically feel her gaze on him. Can only imagine her thoughts.

What had he done?

That's what she's probably thinking. She may say she doesn't want to know, but that doesn't mean she isn't wondering. Coming up with a million different scenarios, each worse than the one before. Perhaps he's a drug dealer, someone who will bring crime and violence to her own backyard. Or maybe he'd been the one who vandalised the park several weeks back, had spraypainted rude things all over the children's playground. Maybe shoplifted all their Christmas toys or kicked a mall Santa in a fit of holiday-induced rage, or blackmailed a public official, or engaged in filthy deeds with a seedy prostitute. There's all manner of things she could assume of him, things that blacken his character even beyond what he's actually done, and he finds suddenly that he wants to tell her.

Not all the details, certainly, but enough that the stream of dastardly deeds he's coming up with aren't repeated in her own head.

"We were short on money," he tells her, breaking the ages of dead air between them. "Rent was due, and our car needed a new transmission, and I'd had a friend who'd been in dire straits several weeks before, so I'd lent him nearly our entire savings. I'd been working then, and I thought I'd have time to make the money back before the holidays, but I got laid off right after Halloween. No more money coming in, only her money to make ends meet. And of course, she hadn't realized I'd given away all we had, and I… I didn't want her to find out."

"You needed to recoup your loss," she surmises, and Robin nods.

"We were already a month late on the rent - I'd not sent the last check because we hadn't the money, and then…" He exhales heavily, shakes his head. "I did a foolish thing. A desperate thing. But the rent got paid to current, and the car got itself fixed, and my son had presents under the tree at Christmas."

"But she found out."

"Yes," Robin sighs, heading back for the next sensor, and affixing it to the very window he'd used to break in to this home. "She found out, and she was none too pleased. Said she didn't want me around our son, that I wasn't the man she knew. Kicked me out, and so I've been here. With John."

Regina's voice is quiet and snide as she mutters, "Can't say I blame her…" and Robin can't help the sharp look he gives her. "You lied to her. You stole from her. You broke the–"

"I did not steal from her," Robin clarifies, and he knows even before she says _You took money from your bank accounts without telling her_ that that's what her argument will be. Because he's had this argument already, many times, with Marian. "Money I intended to pay back."

"But you didn't."

"I was trying to help a friend."

"As altruistic as that may be, you still broke her trust."

"I did it for my family," he tells her, the same thing he's been telling Marian, the thing he's been trying to make her see. That yes, he broke the law. Yes, he did wrong. But he did it for _them_. He did it to _help them_. He did it to _take care of things_. And yes. Yes, maybe there were other solutions, smarter solutions, solutions that would have maybe involved a bit less pride but would have in the end left him with infinitely more self-worth than he has now, but… well, it's done. It's done now, and he cannot undo it, and why can she not just _see_ that he did it for a good reason? Why can't she just see that, and try to move on from all this.

But she cannot, and it seems neither can Regina. She's still staring at him with those crossed arms and an arched brow and a smile he thinks might qualify as haughty. Like she's enjoying his misery, like she thinks he deserves it.

"Well, not everyone wants the law broken for them," she tells him, and Christ, she and Marian should just start a little club, should go to lunch and become fast friends, they've so bloody much in common, the two of them, it seems. "I wouldn't."

"Nobody got hurt," he mutters, and she points out that it sounds like a few people did. He's here, after all, and his wife is wherever she is. "We're not married," he mutters. "We've a child, and we're together, but… we've never married. And anyway, it seemed… more pertinent to take care of my family than it did to hold the law in utmost regard. Sometimes one has to take care of the people they love. By whatever means necessary."

"Good intentions don't justify taking the law into your own hands, Robin."

He lets out a little growl of frustration as he heads back to grab the next sensor, and points out a bit testily, "I didn't off someone, Regina. It was nothing like that."

"Still," she dismisses. "You should have just told her the truth."

"Believe it or not I have figured that out," he replies sardonically. "The absolute shit my well-intentioned decisions have left my life in has been quite insightful in that way." He takes a breath, then asks, "Now would you prefer the window sensors for the living room, or the motion sensors?"

**.::.**

She should probably give him a break.

He has a point - it seems he's more than paid for his crimes, and it's not her place to make him suffer anyway. Whatever he did doesn't affect her in the slightest.

So she drops the subject (even though she finds she rather enjoys the way his jaw clenches when he's annoyed), and asks him, "What's the difference?"

"Well, they're easily accessible windows," he explains, "A more likely point of entry. The motion sensors would cover the room as a whole if you'd rather not put a sensor on each window - we can just put a single one there - but if you plan on arming the motion sensors at night, you're not going to want to do a lot of midnight roaming down here."

She's not one for midnight snacking, and Henry is an excellent sleeper… And while the sensors themselves aren't terribly obtrusive, she does have her parents coming to visit in a week, and she can just hear Cora now. _What are these ugly little things, Regina? _and _Why on earth do you need such extensive security in a neighborhood you keep insisting is perfectly safe for you and Henry?_

That settles it.

"We have a bathroom upstairs," she says. "I can't think of anything we'd need down here at midnight. Let's do the motion sensor."

He grabs the necessary sensor and tools and heads for the living room, and Regina follows.

"I'll put it just here," he tells her, pointing to the corner to the left of the windows, the little spit of wall that separates the living room from the foyer. That way you may actually be alright walking that hallway in the night if you need the kitchen."

Regina tells him that sounds perfect, and sits herself on the piano bench. Something about lounging in her armchair while he works seems… off. Too much like she's observing the help instead of chatting cordially while she works (she's not really doing that, though, is she? More like keeping an eye on him while he secures her home. Needling him about his failures).

He glances her way, then asks, "Do you play?"

"My mother was insistent I learn when I was younger," she tells him. "Years upon years of lessons and recitals. I hated it then, but… In the end, I was glad I'd learned." She runs her fingers along the keys - doesn't press down, just grazes them over the white surface. "This is for Henry. I wanted him to learn an instrument, but he hasn't shown much interest, and I don't want to… be her. I don't want to push. So for now, it's just a great place to rest a few knickknacks."

"You should play something," he encourages, turning back to his work, but she doesn't have to see him to hear the smile in his voice. "Give us a little background music."

Regina scoffs a little, shakes her head. "I don't think so. I've had enough Chopin and Mendelssohn for a lifetime."

"Not that," he chuckles. "What do you play when Henry's not home? When you're alone."

Regina lifts a brow, despite the fact his back is to her.

"What makes you think I do that?"

"It's not dusty," he points out, and Regina counters that nothing in her house is dusty. He shoots her a grin, then shrugs, and continues, "The fallboard is up. And you said Henry doesn't play. Plus, there are no beginners books propped up anywhere."

"You really think I'd leave those just lying around?" she challenges, not sure just why she's fighting him on this. He's right, she does play from time to time, when she's alone or the house is quiet. But that's none of his business, and she hates to think she's so transparent.

"Fair point," he smirks. "But I don't think you'd risk dust gathering under the keys. You'd take better care of your instrument than that."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why should I play?" she asks, using a different tactic.

Robin shrugs again, and simply tells her, "Because it's music. Because it's… transformative. Because even though you say you hated playing when you were young, you still play now. Maybe not Chopin or Mendelssohn, but perhaps… Wainwright or Bareilles?"

Regina laughs softly, because yes, she could play either. That he guesses that, though, has her shifting a little uncomfortably.

"Music is worth playing, Regina, simply by the fact of it being music. It's the thing that reaches into people's very souls, it's the thing people remember when they don't even remember their own names anymore. People can lose themselves completely, to old age or illness, but they remember the music. Turn on something they once loved, and they remember."

It's not something she'd expect him to say. Not the man who was sawing logs on her sofa a week ago, and perhaps not even the man who is currently standing in her living room hooking up a wireless security system. She'd expect it from someone else - from an anthropologist or a musician. But not a criminal, not a drunkard. And she wonders then if maybe she's misjudged him. If there's more to him that what she knows (of course there is, she barely knows him, but for the first time since a week ago, she find she wants to know _more_).

She starts with an assumption: "You play."

He's finished with his task, and so he turns, rests his forearms on the back of one of the armchairs, leaning forward slightly and nodding. "I do. Not piano, really. A bit. I can scratch something out with sheet music and patience and a lot of practice. But guitar, I play. Well, played." His gaze ducks down to his hands as he admits, "I was in a band for quite a while with some of my mates. We did alright - steady enough gigs, but no real success. I loved it, though. The connection with the audience, the music itself… But it's been quite some time since then."

He did love it, she can see it written all over him. A sort of tense sadness, a dreary nostalgia as he talks.

"Why'd you quit?" she asks, tilting her head curiously.

"The band broke up, I had a son to take care of. Bills to pay." His shoulders jerk up, down. "I chose to be practical - and look how well that turned out."

He stands fully then, drawing his arms off the chair.

"So what's stopping you now? It seems like you have all the time in the world; why not play? Why has it been 'quite some time'?"

His lips purse a little, his mouth working before his lips part with an admission: "I sold my guitar. Needed the money. And I've been skint ever since, so there's been no chance to replace it."

He heads back to the foyer then, back to the pile of sensors, and for the first time since she met him, Regina genuinely feels bad for him. Feels sympathy. He's still an idiot, there still must have been better options for making back a few thousand bucks than whatever shady deed he'd done, but… he's miserable. Charming, handsome, helpful tonight, but he's still carrying around this cloud of miserable self-loathing, and somehow the fact that he sold his guitar seems to make him nearly as miserable as losing his family.

It's just a thing, she thinks. But then she thinks that's what her mother would say - that something integral and sentimental is just… a thing.

She thinks of the piano behind her, of how much she had loathed it and loved it in turns growing up. Had hated the regimental practicing, the nitpicking, the perfectionism, but had loved the music. Had loved being able to create. Had loved sitting down when she was in a hot temper and banging out something dramatic and loud and quick, even if it drove her mother crazy. Especially if it drove her mother crazy. Had loved the lilting, dulcet tones, and the quiet evenings on a piano bench next to Daniel. Teaching him "Heart and Soul," and giggling as he plunked clumsily along with her as she played.

Her heart squeezes, like something has put it in a vice grip, like someone has grabbed it and tightened a fist on her.

She tugs the bench out a few inches and settles on it properly as he's coming back into the room.

"One song," she tells him firmly. "One, and that's it."

Robin grins at her, a wide, happy thing that makes her heart stutter. Good God, he's handsome. An idiot, and a criminal, and a mopey, moody musician. But handsome.

"Thank you," he tells her, with such genuine feeling she can't help but smile back for a moment.

But then she schools the smile away from her face, steels her features and tells him, "But I don't sing, so don't ask."

He holds up his hands, another window sensor gripped in one, tools in the other, and swears, "I wouldn't dream of it."

**.::.**

Robin heads into her kitchen as she fiddles with the keys, pressing a few chords, nothing more, but he keeps his ears tuned to the soft sounds, wonders what exactly she'll choose to play for him. What it is she has taken the time to learn and perfect now that it's a choice and not a demand from her bitch of a mother – it comes as no surprise to him that the cold, caustic woman he'd had the distinct displeasure of listening to for his afternoon in the Mills mansion would be the type of parent to force years and years of piano lessons on her child. Come to think of it, they've a grand piano in their sitting room, if he recalls. He remembers admiring it privately as he passed through the house.

He wonders if she grew up there, if that's the piano on which she learned to play.

And as he wonders, he glances around her kitchen - just the one window, above the sink. Just like John's place. Although her kitchen is otherwise nothing like John's. It seems the whole house has been renovated, because this room is all granite and white cupboards, a sleek new stainless steel fridge with an ice maker and all that. Appliances all like new, even though they've probably been here for several years. She doesn't seem the type to let things fall into disrepair.

There are dishes in the sink, and that surprises him. Although on second thought, no. Not dishes. A glass tumbler with some sort of printing on the side, and a travel mug, a pan set to soak. Things to handwash, he bets, as he sets the sensor and necessary tools down on the countertop and reaches to carefully shift the few potted herbs she has in the tiny kitchen windowsill. It's a small window, and a good ways off the ground (the lots slope toward the back, the windows back there are maybe ten feet up from the drive), one that's had John joking more than once that anyone who could make it in through there can have whatever spoils they can carry in reward for their effort.

But he doesn't imagine she shares the sentiment, so he'll arm it just the same as the others.

She starts to play in earnest - it takes him a few bars to realize that the steady measured notes are a song and not just her continuing to stretch her fingers, and several more after that for him to recognize the tune she's chosen. But Marian has played this album again and again, and it's one he's grown to like himself. He's always been rather fond of live albums, and Sara Bareilles' cover of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" never disappoints as far as he's concerned.

He hums along absently, trying to place the verse, the transition from there to the chorus. He finds his place after the first chorus ends, and sings softly as the second verse begins. "What do you think you'll do then, I bet they shoot down your plane, it'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics to get you on your feet again…"

He makes quick work of the sensor, affixing it easily, and enjoying for just a moment the feeling of making music again, of the blending of notes, the mix of instrument and voice. It feels good, familiar, a bit rusty but comfortable. Like an old coat you forgot you had stashed in the back of your closet, and find one day while rummaging around for something else entirely.

He can't quite bring himself to stop, even as he walks back into the living room, back to her. She's smiling softly, looking at the keys, does not look up when he approaches, but he knows she's aware of him. He settles on the edge of the bench as the last chorus begins and she scoots slightly to make room for him to slide in beside her. Her playing is soft, as is his voice, a quiet end, and he cannot help watching her - not the grace of her fingers as they move deftly over keys, but her mouth, her full lower lip as she forms the words silently along with him. "Goodbye yellow brick road, where the dogs of society howl. You can't plant me in your penthouse, I'm going back to my plow, back to the howling old owl in the woods, hunting the horny-backed toad. Oh, I've finally decided my future lies… I've finally decided my future lies…"

**.::.**

"I've finally decided my future lies beyond… the yellow brick road…"

He holds the last note out for a bit, soft and low, and his voice is… remarkably pleasant. Raspy and wonderful and making goosebumps rise beneath the silk of her sleeves. He's sitting close, very close, wedged onto the edge of the bench, his thigh warm against hers, his sleeve brushing her own, and when she presses the final chord and looks up at him, he's right _there_.

Looking at her.

His eyes are such a lovely blue… and intense…

It's silent for a moment, just the two of them sitting, staring. It's as if something has shifted, something has clicked, and for a second she forgets that this is a man she has deemed beneath her, not worth her time, a man who is down on his luck and living miserably because of his own poor choices.

For a second, he is just a man, who is looking straight into her in a way that makes her breath catch. Her tongue creeps out to wet her lips subconsciously, and she takes in a slow, deep breath, fights the urge to look down at his lips. Wonders what they'd feel like against her own.

Henry is upstairs. (It's a dull voice in the back of her head.) And Robin is not a… He's not a good… His eyes are _so_ blue…

And then he blinks, and the world shifts again, and he says to her, almost a plea, "Play me another."

Regina looks away with a heavy swallow, staring dumbly down at the keys and wracking her brain for something, anything. Perhaps something that won't have her staring so foolishly moon-eyed at a virtual stranger in her living room. Something less moody.

Her fingers press down onto the keys, one note, then one, two, three more, and he chuckles warmly and nods, her own smile spreading again as she plays through the beginning of the song.

And then his voice, that voice that still makes her shiver just a little.

"Sittin' in the morning sun, I'll be sittin' til the evening comes, watching the ships roll in…"

There is nothing sexy about "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," she thinks. At least, nothing overtly sexy, and as long as she doesn't look at him, as long as she keeps her eyes to herself, that ludicrous moment of tense attraction will fade.

And then he's embellishing, knocking his shoulder into her playfully as he sings, and she's laughing, nodding along with the music, grinning. She's missed this - playing with someone _else_, a voice other than her own to sound out the music, not knowing exactly what she's going to hear next from him.

"Mom?"

She gasps, head whipping around, her arm knocking hard into Robin's as the rest of her body follows, fingers leaving the keys with a discordant plunk. Her heart is thudding hard, surprise and for some reason a shred of mortification kicking up in her chest. Like she's been caught doing something horribly inappropriate.

Henry is standing at the base of the stairs, looking at them curiously. Then he seems to recognize Robin, and grins.

"Hi, Robin!" he greets, padding into the room. "How's Tuck?"

"Tuck's well," Robin answers with a slight nod, although he sounds just a little bit thrown by the intrusion as well. "And John's back now, so perhaps your mum will let you drop by for a visit?"

They're both looking at her then, and Regina drops the fallboard swiftly to cover the keys, then spins around to face Henry full-on as she considers. There's really no reason not to let him go play with the dog - even with Robin's little revelation tonight, she's fairly certain he's not dangerous. Boneheaded, maybe, and probably short-sighted, with a somewhat questionable view on morality, but… not _dangerous, _per se.

So she concedes, "I think that could be allowed - on another night, when it's not so late."

"Yes!" Henry exclaims, and then his face screws up into a little frown and he asks, "What are you guys doing?"

She wonders what he must be thinking - coming downstairs to find his mother sitting at the piano with a strange man (not a complete stranger, sure, but the last time Robin had been here, he'd been a mess), laughing… flirting? No, they hadn't been doing that. Still, it's no wonder he's a little confused.

"Robin brought us a security system to make amends for breaking in," she tells him, mentally pulling herself back together. She feels off-kilter, unsteady, cannot place why. "He was just installing all the sensors."

Henry gives her a look, a smirk, one he's just recently perfected that she knows is going to be a precursor to some sassy comment, and sure enough, he snarks, "Is someone going to steal the piano?"

"Henry," she says warningly, but Robin is chuckling next to her, and telling her son he begged a song out of her when he saw the piano, then asking if he'd like to help him with the rest of the installation.

Henry perks up and nods eagerly, and Regina glances at her watch and decides there's still plenty of time before Henry has to be getting ready for bed.

"Is all your reading finished?" she asks, and he nods, "And your math?"

"Yep," he tells her proudly. "All of it." And then he holds out the sheets of paper clutched in his hand, and tells her, "Here, you can check it." She hadn't even noticed the papers before, but she rises now and moves to take them, Robin following after her once he's tucked the bench back in its place.

"Then you can help Robin," she tells him with a smile, glancing at the worksheets and muttering, "Come get me when you're ready to do my room…" as she heads for her armchair again.

They disappear, headed for the office-slash-TV-room beyond the stairs, and Regina looks over Henry's homework, then takes a few minutes to wash up the dishes in the sink and wipe down the countertops. By the time she's standing in her bedroom doorway, watching Robin attach sensors to the windows there, too, she's recovered from whatever bout of wayward hormones had had her thinking about his mouth and his blue eyes. She's been single too long, she thinks. That's all it was. Too long without being so close to such a handsome man. Nothing more.

He finishes his work, shows her and Henry how to set the code, how to arm and disarm the system, then points out the number for Regina to call and activate the service that will have the police knocking on her door if she doesn't call off the dogs when the alarm is activated.

He's gone shortly thereafter, and Regina goes back to her normal Sunday night routine, getting Henry ready for bed, drawing herself a hot bath and wallowing in it, deep conditioning her hair and applying a luminizing mask to her face. And if her mind occasionally wanders back to blue eyes and dimples, well… who can really blame her?


	5. Chapter 5

Another week has gone by, or nearly so anyway, and Robin hasn't given much more thought to Regina Mills. He's had other things on his mind, bigger fish to fry. He's been working, but as promised, August has arranged the schedule so he's had the shifts least in-demand - which translates to the shifts that earn the least in tips. Any money at all is better than none, though, so he's not complaining. Not at all.

But it's kept him busy at night from Monday through Wednesday, and despite the fact that he's never been anything but a good father, that he's never once put Roland in any harm, Marian has been insistent still that he can't take his son out of daycare while she's at work. He'd called a week ago, had asked again to see him, had told Marian he's gotten himself a job now, and he's got a birthday gift for their son. Had begged and pleaded to her voicemail, but he'd not heard from her until Monday, and even then it was just a text: _Maybe next weekend. We'll talk._

He'd offered to come get him some morning, to watch him during the day and drop him back at the daycare in the afternoon, but she'd refused. Had said something about Roland's routine, but he wonders what it must be like for Roland's precious bloody routine to have his father there every day of his life and then suddenly gone. Cut off. He knows she's lied to explain away his absence. She's told Roland he was in bloody England of all places, that he'd had to go back and visit his own Mum and Dad, and that he couldn't call because it's very late in Britain, you see, and Robin had been furious. Had been furious that she'd roped him into a lie, one he's going to have to maintain. ("Oh, now lying is a problem for you?" Marian had bit caustically over the line, a fortnight ago, when he'd finally gotten her to pick up the phone at all.)

The whole situation is a mess. It's hurtful, and demoralizing. Makes Robin want to kick walls and punch pillows, and perhaps that's not a good thing to admit - the violent tension of his anger. Perhaps he's no good for his son after all.

No.

No, that's not true; he refuses to believe that. He's a good man - one who lost his way for a while, perhaps, but he's a good man at heart. And he's a good father, he knows that, and his heart aches for his boy, for every day he's missed with him, for every new thing he's learned that Robin has not been there to teach him, for the giggles he's missed, and the smiles and the tears. He feels the loss of his son keenly, like someone's chopped off a limb. Cut out something vital.

He _needs_ to see his boy again.

So here it is Saturday morning, and he's not yet heard from Marian. Roland usually takes a short nap in the late morning, so Robin waits until then to call, wants to make sure she has time to talk without their son overhearing, to argue if need be, although he sincerely hopes they don't. He's tired of arguing with her, just wants everything to go back to the way it was before. Before he ruined it all with his reckless stupidity.

The phone rings twice before she picks up, and she sighs as she tells him, "Hi, Robin."

"Hello, love," he greets. "How's your week been?"

"I'll bring him by this afternoon, after lunch," she tells him (straight to the chase then, apparently), and he thinks she sounds tired. Worn out. A bit defeated. He wishes he could be there with her instead of just on the phone. Wishes he could soothe whatever troubles her - wishes especially that what troubles her isn't him, although he's fairly certain it is. That it's all of this, and he's to blame for everything.

"Thank you," he tells her, trying to put weeks' worth of feeling into two little words. "Does he know he's coming?"

"No," Marian says with a bit of a scoff. "I wanted him to actually sleep. He'd never have taken a nap if he knew; he'd have been too excited." There's a pause wherein Robin finds himself smiling with relief - at least someone will be happy to see him. It's been weeks since he's known that feeling. Then she mutters, "He misses you," and Robin feels twin swells of guilt and anger.

"He needn't have," he replies, even though he knows it will rankle her, and wasn't it just moments ago he'd been thinking he'd rather not fight? But her outright refusal to allow him any access to Roland, not so much as a sodding phone call on the boy's _birthday_, has him angrier than much of anything ever has.

"Don't start, Robin," she warns him, sure enough. "You got yourself into this-"

"I'm not the one keeping me apart from Roland, Marian."

"No, you're just the one who-" Her voice drops suddenly, and it hadn't been all that loud to begin with; he wonders if Roland is still awake after all. "-broke into someone's house, stole several thousand dollars worth of jewelry, and pawned it for cash. Except, of course, for the piece you saved for me."

That had been his downfall. He'd pawned everything but one piece, a bracelet ringed with small diamonds, and rubies, and sapphires. It had been lovely, and almost modest, and he'd thought she would fancy it. He'd thought she'd assume all the stones were fake, that she wouldn't question his gift. And in the beginning, she hadn't, but he'd made the mistake of giving it to her in the box he'd found it in, the one it had surely come in, and not two weeks after Christmas she'd pulled the inner lining up by accident and found a tag tucked inside: _To my dear heart, Cora, on our anniversary. Love, Henry_.

Her first assumption had been that he'd bought it secondhand - not an unfair guess, considering she was well aware he'd put his guitar in hoc weeks before, when things had been tight. And she'd decided he'd been moody and miserable ever since, and she'd rather have him with his instrument back in his hands than wear semi-precious jewels around her wrist, so she'd marched right back down to that pawn shop on a weekend afternoon and asked the appraiser there how much she could get for it, if it would be enough to buy one of the several guitars he'd had in stock at the time. It had been worth far more than enough, and Robin had come home from drinks with John and Will to find his lover stony-faced on the sofa, the bracelet, the box, and the card sitting bold as daylight on the coffee table before her.

The row that had ensued - over why he had spent every penny in their savings on a silly bracelet when they were already struggling (assumption number two on her part, one that would quickly unravel), over where it had come from, over him having _done WHAT? _- had been loud enough to wake Roland, and Robin had been off to John's for the night because she'd hissed that she couldn't even look at him right then.

And there he'd been ever since.

"For my family," he says, for what must be the one trillionth time in the last month.

"Robin, please," Marian argues wearily. "Don't. I don't want to have this argument again. I'll drop Roland off at two, run some errands, and be back for him by five."

"Three hours?" he questions her. "That's it?"

"He's in bed by 7:30, and he needs dinner, and a bath, and-"

"I can cook him dinner," Robin insists, "And I can bring him home in time for a bath before bed. I could come home, and help with his bath, and put him down, and maybe we could talk for a bit after he–"

"We have nothing to talk about," she tells him shortly, but her voice is soft, he thinks there's pain there.

He feels the little niggle of panic up his spine, a familiar sensation in the last few anxious weeks. He's been convinced that this is not permanent, that they will work things out, that all of this can be fixed and he can get back to life as normal, but every time they've spoken, she's sounded more and more resolved, and it has him grasping at some way to make her stay, to keep her with him.

"How can you say that?" he asks her gently. "We've sorted nothing out. You won't hear me."

"Oh, I hear you, Robin. I just don't like what I hear."

He rakes a hand through his hair, exhales heavily and flops back onto his bed. "I was trying to do the–"

"Robin, I've heard it already. And I know you believe the things you're saying, or at least I think you do - I don't really know anymore, to be honest. I feel like I don't know you at all."

"You _do_," he insists. "I'm still me. I'm still the man you-"

"No, you're not," she tells him before he even gets a chance to finish his sentence. "The man I fell in love with wasn't a thief, or a liar, or a coward, and you have been all of those things, Robin. I don't know what happened to you, or how I missed it, but you've changed. And I don't like the change."

"I'm trying to change back," he tells her, watching the blades of his ceiling fan spin and spin and spin over his head until he's dizzy. "I'm trying to make everything right. To fix everything I cocked up. Please, Marian."

"Robin…"

She's not convinced. He's begged and pleaded himself blue over the last month, but she remains unconvinced. He'd thought maybe now that he had a job things would be different, that she'd see he was trying, see he was changing, and she'd come around, but she still hasn't, and Robin is at a loss. Rudderless. No clue what tactic to use to guide her home to him - or him home to her, rather, because he's the one adrift and alone while she sleeps in their bed and eats in their kitchen and tucks their child in at night.

"What can I say to convince you to give this another shot?" he asks, hoping she will help him, hoping she will just bloody tell him what she needs. What hoop he needs to jump through, what penance he has to pay.

She sounds her weariest yet when she questions, "Is there anything honest you haven't said already in the last few weeks?"

No. The answer is no. He's out of things to say, out of ways to plead with her.

All he has left is desperation and failure, and, "Marian, I am trying."

"You've said that already."

"I love you," he tells her, as ardently as he can manage, because shouldn't that be enough? Love? Isn't love enough to fight for, to try again?

"Do you?" she questions, and that she doubts that is so stunning it has his mouth snapping shut dumbly. "Truly? Or are you just... comfortable?" He does, he's certain of it. He must love her, he has loved her for ages, she is the mother of his child, the woman he has spent the last five years with, sleeping beside, fucking passionately, kissing good morning. Of course he loves her. "Because the time we've spent apart has given me a chance to think, to see things more clearly. And I don't think we love each other anymore, Robin. I don't think we have for a while. Not really. I certainly don't think we've been blissfully happy. I feel like… I feel like we've been staying together because it's what we're used to. Because it's easier than leaving. And that's not what I want, not for me and not for Roland."

"Marian…"

"It's over, Robin," she tells him, resolutely but with the tiniest of quivers in her voice, and he finds his throat is suddenly thick and tight. "I don't know how you really feel, and I don't know if you do either, but I know how I feel. And I don't want this anymore. I won't keep you from having a relationship with Roland, but you no longer have one with me. I'm done."

He doesn't know what to say to that. Doesn't know how else he can try to change her mind - suspects for the first time that he truly can't. He doesn't speak, just lets out a heavy breath, his tongue like lead.

"I'll see you in a little while, and… you can bring him home after dinner, and get the rest of your things." When Robin still doesn't answer, she asks, "Okay?"

His "Yeah," is low and hollow, and then she's saying goodbye, and Robin hangs up the phone with a heavy sigh. He sits up, drops his face into his palms, scrubbing them up and down and then letting them fall away.

So that's that, then.

They're over.

He waits for the pang of sadness, for the desperate grief of losing her, but it doesn't come. Instead he just feels... numb. Hollow.

Perhaps Marian is right, perhaps what they had left wasn't love, but the last dregs of something that had once been good. Because what Robin feels now isn't the deep sadness of lost love, just the same, heavy weight of failure he's been feeling for months.

Another thing he's cocked all to hell.

Another good thing ruined by his one reckless act. No, it hadn't been one thing to ruin them, couldn't have been. It was many little things along the way, it must have been… Somewhere he'd gone wrong, taken a bad turn and not seen it until it was too late to turn round. But right now, today, it feels like it's all his fault.

He sits for a while and just stares at his phone, at the photograph of his darling boy grinning up at him from the screen.

He'll be here soon, finally after all this time, and that's something.

Enough for today - will have to be.

**.::.**

Regina's stomach is already in knots, and her parents won't arrive for another six hours. But that's six hours in which she has to finish cleaning the house, shower and dress herself in something Mother will have a hard time criticizing, make Henry presentable, prep and make dinner… Six hours may sound like plenty of time, but Regina already feels the ticking of the clock as she maneuvers the alleyway that runs behind their block and pulls her car into the drive.

She pops her trunk and steps out of the car, slings her purse over her shoulder, is headed around toward the back of the car when she sees him.

Robin.

He's meandering her way, in jeans and a leather jacket, a hoodie zipped up underneath and a scarf wrapped around his neck (so he does own one, after all). His hands are jammed into his pockets, his face tipped down to stare at the sidewalk, his shoulders hunched. He looks… miserable. Like a kicked puppy.

She shouldn't care - she doesn't care - but still, she can't help greeting him cordially once he's in earshot. His head whips up - she'd startled him - but he offers her a smile - or tries to, anyway. It doesn't reach anywhere near his eyes, barely makes it across his lips, and the part of her that is drawn to the broody, serious men (Daniel had never been that way, had been easygoing and light, but Graham… Graham had been prone to dark moods and long stretches of brooding and she'd always found them in turns incredibly irritating and terribly sexy) aches with sympathy.

She tilts her head slightly, looks him up and down and asks, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he assures, smiling again (he'd already dropped the first curve of lips) and this time he almost sells it.

Still…

"I'm fairly skilled at spotting a liar…" she tells him, and he drops the pretenses again, letting out a heavy sigh and letting his shoulders lift and fall.

"I've just gotten off the phone with Marian," he says, and, _well_, she thinks, _say no more_. "She's made it quite clear that we are... over."

It's not terribly surprising to Regina. She knows she doesn't know all the details, but for a woman to keep her son from his father for a whole month, things had to have been pretty dire. Still, she can see that it's fresh pain, and so she smiles sympathetically and says she's sorry.

Robin shakes his head, looks down at the pavement for a moment. "My own fault."

"Yes," she agrees, because it is, and she's not one to mince words or coddle. But she's not entirely heartless, so she adds, "But that doesn't make it any easier. Probably the opposite."

Robin nods, but says nothing.

"What about your son?" she asks, hoping she hasn't just scraped claws across another sore wound.

But he brightens then, just a little, a genuine smile tugging the corners of his mouth upwards. "She's bringing him by at two," he tells her, his mood still dour, but there's a lightness at the edges now. He seems an odd mix of depressed and almost giddy. "I'll have him through dinner - I'm off to the store now. I thought I might make him pasta, but we've no sauce, or breakfast, but we've no eggs. We've a box of mac and cheese, which is his absolute favorite, but no butter and John's used the last of the milk on his cereal this morning. So. Off I go."

By the time he finishes, Regina's brows are halfway to her hairline, her lips in a bemused smirk. Men. How in the world do they live like that - with half of everything they need and yet not enough to make an actual meal.

She rolls her eyes, tells him, "Oh, for God's sake. Let me guess, the place is filthy, too?"

"It is not," Robin defends, and then he grimaces slightly and concedes, "A bit cluttered, perhaps, but it's not dirty." His expression drops again and then he mutters, "Marian's going to think it's an absolute sty. I ought to clean up before she gets here."

Regina chuckles softly - sure enough. She glances back at her several bags of groceries and multiple bouquets of flowers, and decides to take pity on him. "Help me carry these in and I'll send you home with butter and milk. Save you some time."

Normally, she'd have hollered for Henry after the first trip inside, but this will do.

"You don't have to do that," he tells her, but he's stepping forward anyway, reaching for two sacks and hefting them easily. "But I'll help you carry regardless. Chivalry, and all that."

"My hero," she teases sarcastically, grabbing one of the bouquets for herself and leading him toward the back steps. She fishes her keys out of her purse at the top, lets herself in. She can hear the sound of the TV coming from the back room just a few steps away - no, not the TV. A video game. Deciding to leave Henry to his distractions for a while, she nods Robin in the direction of the kitchen, and settles the flowers on the tabletop next to the two dozen chocolate chip cookies that are laid out to cool. Two dozen minus three, she notices, although she can't say she's terribly surprised that Henry dipped into them while she was gone.

"Where should I…?" he asks her, lifting his bags pointedly.

"The counter's fine," she tells him, and he slides the bags onto the empty space near the sink and heads back out, Regina following after him. It's two more bags of groceries for him, and two more bouquets for her, and then she's nudging the trunk closed and toeing the door shut behind them.

He's already opened her refrigerator when she walks into the kitchen, something that rankles her, despite the fact that she can see he's just trying to be polite and put things away (there's a full carton of milk in one of his hands, a bunch of lettuce in the other).

"All this food and you've gone shopping again?" he asks, with curious amusement - the fridge is nowhere near empty, she's well stocked on the basics. This was a precision-buying trip.

"This is just for tonight," she tells him, her voice filling with dread when she adds, "My parents are coming for dinner."

He seems to pause for a second, stiffens, and then he's turning away from the fridge where he's put things away God only knows where and reaching for something else in the bag. She should stop him before he makes an absolute mess of her fridge and adds reorganizing to the list of things she has to do today.

"I take it you're not looking forward to the visit?" he asks her, and she squeezes into the space between him and the fridge door, surprised to find he's put the milk away exactly where she wants it (though to be fair, there's another nearly empty carton right beside it). The greens are on a shelf instead of the crisper, but it's an easy fix.

When she turns back he nearly bumps into her, they're so close, and he startles a little at their proximity, then takes a slight step back and passes her the groceries in his hands. She stows them away where they go, and then answers, "Yes and no. My father is a wonderful man." He continues unpacking as she talks, hands her things to put away one by one. "Kind, and loving, and I haven't seen him in a while, so that will be nice. But my mother… can be difficult. She always seems to find something to pick on. Something I'm not doing well enough. Some new piece of furniture that she hates, or the one C on Henry's report card and how it's going to set him up for a lifetime of underachieving even though he's only ten, or not getting the lead on the big new account at work when I have seniority. And then she'll move on to why I'm still single, and…"

She glances up at him, and finds him giving her a lopsided sort of smile as he watches her curiously. She's babbling, she realizes with a sheepish sort of smile. Rambling nervously, and it's more than she would usually admit to a stranger, more than she ought to admit to him maybe, but it's not as though she doesn't know a good portion of his shitty life. Might as well offer him something in return. But she doesn't want to burden him, and doesn't want his pity, so she leans in conspiratorially and adds, "I don't suppose you want to come and pretend to be my boyfriend? Knock one off the list?"

Robin laughs at her, his brows lifting and falling, and she realizes it had come out much… flirtier than she'd intended. He doesn't seem to mind, though.

"Dinner with the parents without even the promise of a snog afterward?" he questions, and, oh, those dimples are deep and friendly again. He's not good for her starved hormones, this man. "I'm sorry, but I'm not quite that altruistic. I think I'll stick with my son."

"Wise choice," she concedes with a bit of a grimace. "My mother would hate you anyway."

"Oh really?" he asks with a lift of his brows. "I'll have you know I'm quite charming. Mothers love me."

"Not this one," she tells him with a shake of her head. "You're too…" She looks him up and down, appraisingly, and concludes, "Pedestrian. Mother believes one's trajectory must always continue moving upward. She'd want to see me with a banker, or a lawyer, or a politician. Someone who wears Brooks Brothers and spent his college years in an Ivy League fraternity."

"Gits, the lots of them," he tells her shortly, and she smirks.

"Yes, well. She has high expectations for me."

"And you've not lived up to them?" he asks, seems baffled by the very idea. "With your well-kept home, and your bright and charming son, and your, I'm assuming, successful career."

Regina lets out another rueful chuckle, shaking her head and telling him, "My home is not the most desirable of neighborhoods, my son was born out of wedlock, and my career would be even more successful if I hadn't taken two years off in the middle of it to mourn my fiancé—whom she also disliked—and raise my son."

For a moment, Robin just looks at her, his brow scrunched, his lips pressed together. And then he says, "You know, I find I really dislike your mother."

Regina laughs - she probably shouldn't, but she does - and quips, "And you haven't even met her."

She really shouldn't be doing this, badmouthing Mother the way she is. To a stranger. But she finds this stranger particularly easy to talk to for some reason, and she's still feeling jittery with nerves over how the evening will go. It's nice, for a moment, to be able to confess to someone who couldn't possibly look down on her how much her mother picks at her for every little thing.

Still, it's rude, and far too personal, so she reaches for the fresh pack of butter she'd bought at the store, peels open the cardboard packaging and slips a stick from the box, then reaches for the half-spent carton of milk.

As she does, she concedes, "She's not horrible; I'm just venting inappropriately." Handing Robin the milk and butter, she tells him, "You should probably get to that cleaning. It's noon already."

"Right," he agrees with a soft smile. "Thank you." He lifts the butter and milk slightly in his grasp, "Both for these, and for giving me a few minutes' distraction. John's been out all morning; it's just me and the dog."

He's lonely. Lonely, and sad, and she really needs to stop feeling even a shred of sympathy for a man who is lonely and sad because of his own idiotic deeds. Just because she's feeling edgy, and he's being so kind, doesn't mean she should let things between them get overly friendly.

"Well, I'd hate for your son to starve or have to play in squalor." They're still standing there in front of the open refrigerator, and it occurs to Regina that they're just letting out all the cold air and wasting electricity. So as she concedes with a bit of that sympathy she should be suppressing, "And you looked like someone had kicked your puppy. I felt oddly compelled to see that you were alright," she takes a step back and shuts the door.

"Well, I appreciate it," he tells her, and then, "Good luck with your dinner."

"Good luck with your son," she replies in turn.

She'll dust the living room surfaces next, she thinks, already mentally moving on with her list. She'll dust, and then she'll set out the flowers she bought, and - as she turns to look at the bouquets on the table, she gets an idea.

"Do you want to take some cookies?" she offers. "For your son."

Robin looks over at them, all golden brown and enticing on their racks, and she can see how much he wants to say yes, but he shakes his head and tells her, "No, that's alright. I wouldn't want to put you out more than I already have."

"I insist," she urges. "Take some. Hell, take half. God knows I don't need them here."

"No, I couldn't," he insists. "You're having company; keep your sweets."

"You'd be doing me a favor, honestly."

"A favor?"

"Let me tell you how this is going to go," Regina argues, reaching for two cookies and stacking them to the side. "Henry will be given two cookies and sneak two more when he thinks I'm not looking." She adds the aforementioned snuck cookies, and continues to pull every one she mentions as she speaks on, "My mother will have one. I will take one bite of mine and she will make some expertly-timed comment about how it looks like I've put on a few pounds, or ask if I've heard about that new study that says the key to weight loss is actually low carb instead of low fat, and then I will lose my appetite entirely, and give the rest to my father, who will have already had one, two at most. And that leaves a solid dozen cookies for you and your son, which Henry won't need after the nearly ten he'll have wolfed down and I will feel too guilty to eat myself."

"That's… insane," he deduces, glancing between her and the stack of cookies.

Regina feels a flare of embarrassment in her belly. Why is she saying all this to him? One hand lifts to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear as she acknowledges, "Yes. Well."

She doesn't know what else to say, so she walks away from him, moves to the cupboards to get a tupperware container, and begins to pack away cookies before he can give her another protest.

There's silence for a minute, but it's tense, like they're both on the verge of speaking and neither will take the step.

Robin breaks first, beginning almost awkwardly, "Pardon me for saying so, but your body is…" She looks over at him and finds him checking her out - a quick thing, just a glance up and down. She thinks of Sidney, of the way he always takes her in and makes her skin crawl. Robin, though, Robin has her holding her breath, awaiting the verdict. Berating herself for doing so, for caring even the slightest bit for what he might think. "...in rather incredible shape," he concludes, and Regina finds herself biting back a smile. She doesn't spend all those hours working out for nothing. "If your mother says otherwise, she's wrong."

"I know," Regina admits. "But knowing doesn't change anything. She's my mother; she knows all the tender spots."

"Because she's the one who's been poking at them your whole life?"

Yes, she thinks. That's exactly why.

"You're awfully nosy today," she accuses frostily, evading the conversation that is officially becoming much too personal much too quickly. And true, she may have led them down this path, may have taken the first steps there herself, but… he's hitting a nerve, now, is making her stomach churn with unwanted anxiety, and she has enough of that already. She wants him out, suddenly. Wants him away from her, so she won't be tempted to continue revealing all her scars to him.

He stiffens, ducks his head guiltily, and apologizes. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'll head home, get out of your hair."

She nods her head, doesn't look at him, moves to free the flowers from their cellophane wrapping and listens for the sound of the door closing behind him.

When she hears it (soft and quiet, almost dripping with resignation, and how can one close a door in such a depressing way - or maybe she's projecting, she must be projecting…), she feels a lance of guilt in her belly. He'd only been trying to be kind, and he was already having an awful day.

She could have been kinder.

Could have told him goodbye, at the very least, but she'd… he'd… she…

She'd revealed too much of herself, given far too much away. She is not the talking type, not the sharing type, and she curses her mother for being so… _Cora_ that she has Regina all in knots, has her so twisted up and turned around over a simple dinner that she's spilling her guts to the neighbor like they're friends, or like they're… Like she needs that sort of thing. Someone to talk to, someone to listen, someone to tell her to let it all roll off her the way Daniel used to, the way Graham had tried to.

Robin is not the only one who is lonely, she realizes, shutting her eyes and pressing her palms to the table for a moment. She is, too. She misses having someone. Misses having a balm for her battered ego on nights like this.

But that is weak. It is weak, and it is stupid. And she is neither of those things, nor is she needy, nor is she about to turn into a weepy, neurotic mess in front of a neighbor she barely knows much less likes just because he's guessed at her private pain. (She'd made the guessing game remarkably easy for him.)

She tips her chin up, and balls up the cellophane from the flowers, tossing it in the trash before hunting down the dusting spray. And if she's blinking back tears as she does it, well that's his fault as much as it's Cora's, and screw him for that, too.


	6. Chapter 6

"Daddy!"

Roland's shout is loud and gleeful, and has Robin grinning instantly. He'd seen Marian's car pull up and had been unable to wait, bringing his plate and cup to the kitchen and then heading outside before they'd even made it toward the walk. Roland is out of his car seat at least, and he wriggles in Marian's grasp as Robin jogs down the steps. When Marian finally lets their son down to the ground, he runs on his little legs, grinning and giggling and Robin's heart is close to bursting. He scoops the boy up into his arms, lifting him high and giving him a little toss before pulling him in close for a fierce bear hug.

"Daddy, you're back!" he shouts right in Robin's ear, but Robin couldn't care less at the volume. (He's so happy in this exact moment that he's not even bothered by the implications of the words - by the lie he's been roped into and the trip he's said to have taken.) He'd let Roland holler him deaf if it meant having him close enough to hear and touch and smell - he buries his face into his boy's neck and breathes in the scent of baby shampoo and detergent, laughing when Roland squeals and writhes at the tickle of his beard against soft skin. Tiny hands tug at the back of his head until he lifts it, and then Roland's fingers pat at his cheeks, the boy's dimples deep and happy as he continues to giggle. "Missed you!" Roland exclaims, and Robin feels a hot twist of guilt and anger, glancing over the boy's shoulder at Marian, who is watching them with a sad sort of smile, pulling her coat a little tighter against the bite of the breeze.

Still, all he says is, "I missed you too, my boy. You've gotten so big - you must be five feet taller now, hmm?"

Roland giggles and shakes his head, says, "Nooo."

Robin nods insistently. "Oh, yes, you must be. Maybe even six feet," he tells him, and then Roland's eyes go wide and fearful, his body rigid. Robin turns to see what the boy has caught sight of and finds Tuck bounding eagerly toward them from where Robin has left the front door open.

The dog hops up against Robin's legs, paws against his thigh and barks a hello, but Roland twists in Robin's grasp, points his little finger and shouts, "NO! Bad dog! Go 'way!"

Tuck just barks again, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he waits to be petted.

"Now, now," Robin chides Roland, dropping one hand to give Tuck a light push until he settles on his rump at Robin's feet. "Tuck's just saying hello." He glances back at the dog, and addresses him, "A bit rudely, perhaps, but he's excited to see his friend Roland."

Still, Roland cowers into Robin's neck, tucking his face away and whining. Robin's not quite sure what to do with him - Roland's never been shy around animals before, least of all Tuck, whom he's known since he was a wee babe.

"He, um," Marian speaks up, "He had an incident with a dog at the park about a week and a half ago. Roland reached to pet without asking, and got snapped at. He's been skittish ever since, but I figured he'd be fine with Tuck."

"Apparently not," Robin mutters, shifting his hold on Roland until it's more secure and crouching down so they're closer to eye level with the dog. He's sitting docilely, tail wagging, but he stands when they crouch and noses into Robin's arm, sniffs at Roland who wriggles anxiously. "You remember Tuck, hmm?" Robin encourages. "He's a nice doggy."

"Daddy, no…" Roland protests, pressing himself up against Robin again. But then suddenly he's twisting away, reaching up toward Marian, and crying, "Mama, help!"

"Robin, just keep the dog outside for a while until Roland's settled in," Marian sighs, and Robin stands again, scowling. Well, that was entirely unhelpful. "Maybe he'll be better then."

"And where exactly should I put him, Marian? It's not as though we have a fenced-in yard. And it's bloody March; he'll freeze just sitting out there." He finds he's angry with her all of a sudden. Hurt, and angry, and annoyed at this whole situation. Annoyed that they're at odds instead of a unit, annoyed that his son's been afraid of dogs for a whole week and a half and he's only just finding out now. Annoyed that he's seeing Roland at what is apparently now Robin's semi-permanent domicile instead of going _home_ to be with him like he ought to be. Annoyed that she never gave him a sodding chance to even _try_ to mend their relationship after his colossal blunder.

For her part, Marian is standing there stony-faced now, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She takes a deep breath in, then out, and suggests, "Then shut him in one of the bedrooms for a while. But you won't have a very enjoyable afternoon if Roland spends the whole time stressed out and frightened. And frankly, that's not the kind of day I want for my son."

"_Our_ son," Robin corrects her, because how dare she claim ownership of him all of a sudden like Robin hasn't been there every day of his life? Is this how things are going to be now? Tense and angry and possessive?

"You know what I meant," Marian mutters, and Roland snuggles closer into Robin's neck, his little nose pressing against his father's skin.

"Daddy, it's cold," he declares. The breeze has kicked up, and it is a bit nippy, especially for Robin standing there without even his coat or hoodie.

"Alright, lad, let's get you inside," he murmurs to his son, still no clue what to do with the dog. He looks to Marian, asks, "Does he have a bag with toys or anything?"

She nods, uncrosses her arms and holds up the hand gripping just such a bag. He hadn't even noticed she'd been holding it until now. "Do you still have his seat in your car, or do you need this one?"

Robin shakes his head, reaching for the bag. "No, I've got it."

"He should be back for bath time by seven, earlier if he needs dinner, too," she instructs, and Robin shoulders the bag, wraps his arms more snugly around Roland's body and tries to resist the urge to remind her that he's well acquainted with Roland's routine; he doesn't need to be told.

"I've dinner for him here," he insists instead, looking at his son as he says, "We're going to have a bit of mac and cheese, how does that sound?"

"Yes!" Roland declares, eyes lighting up, and Robin can't help smiling in return. He's never been a master chef, but mac and cheese he can handle, and it's certainly not the first time he and Roland have made a meal of it. It's rather a specialty of his at this point.

"Fine," Marian agrees. "Then seven. Latest."

"I'll be there," he tells her, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice and meeting her gaze before adding, "I promise."

She nods then, apparently satisfied, stepping up and pressing a kiss to Roland's cheek, stroking her fingers through his hair, and murmuring, "Mommy loves you," and "Have fun with Daddy, okay?"

"You're going?" Roland asks, his little brow wrinkling in confusion - and of course it is, because the boy's got no idea his parents are no longer together, and as far as he's concerned, they should all be celebrating excitedly at being reunited after weeks apart.

For the first time since she got there, Robin sees a flicker of pain in Marian's eyes, her cool mask slipping as she flounders for what to say without saying everything. She settles on a, "I have some things I need to do today, but Daddy will bring you home tonight," that would not be terribly convincing to anyone over the age of five. But Roland is a mere three, and so he takes her words at face value, despite the pinched look on her face and the way her eyes lock with Robin's for a moment - but only a moment - before they skitter away again.

Roland nods and gives her cheek a messy kiss in return, then waves his goodbye. Tuck offers his own in the form of a bark, and Roland, who seemed to have forgotten the imminent threat of possibly being licked to death for a few moments, stiffens in Robin's hold and whines again. "Daddy, no doggy," he insists, sticking out his lower lip pitifully, his eyes round and fearful.

Marian is already headed for the driver's side of the car, but she glances back as she opens the door, and reads the scene instantly. He can see the moment of hesitation, can see her mouth twist into a deeper frown, and he's loathe to be browbeaten again over the dog, over anything, so he turns before Marian can say anything and heads for the neighbor's house on impulse.

He knows she's busy, knows he'll be interrupting, knows they didn't exactly part on the most cordial of terms this morning, but he also knows that Henry has wanted some time with the pup, and, well, what anxious mother doesn't want her kid out of the house and out of her hair for a little while, right?

He hopes.

Tuck seems to know where they're headed before they even finish passing the other side of John's duplex, and he bounds ahead and trots his way up Regina's porch, settling down dutifully on the doormat and thumping his tail back and forth.

"Where we goin'?" Roland asks, "Uncle John's house is that way."

"It is indeed, but a very nice boy lives in this house, and I thought I'd see if he could take old Tuck here for a walk, and then perhaps when they get back, he won't be so hyper, and you'll not be so frightened of him," Robin explains as he heads up Regina's walk and says a silent prayer that she will be swayed by puppy eyes and toddler dimples and whatever lingering sympathy she may have from earlier.

"He'll bite me," Roland murmurs pitifully, and Robin gives him a squeeze, assures him that Tuck will do no such thing. He's a friendly doggy, remember?

"You've played with Tuck since you were a tiny little thing, and he's never bitten you," Robin reminds.

"But… but he could bite now?"

"He won't," Robin assures. "But we'll see if Henry can take him for a bit just the same, alright, my boy?"

Roland nods at that, and cuddles in closer to Robin's neck as they climb the steps. He's murmuring about the cold again as Robin presses the doorbell, an unnecessary reminder considering how Robin's arms are flecked with gooseflesh even beneath his shirt.

It's only a moment before the door opens, and he finds himself having to bite back a smile at the sight that greets him.

Regina, looking ornery as a hornet, is standing on the other side of the threshold, now in dark leggings and a threadbare old Boston College sweatshirt that's several sizes too large, brandishing a cleaning rag and a scowl.

"Hello, Regina," he greets with his most charming smile.

"Let me guess, you need to borrow a pot to cook it all in?" she asks, as though it hasn't been two hours since last they spoke, as though they're simply continuing where they left off.

Her gaze flicks to Roland, then, and softens, her frowning lips twitching up into a smile despite her best efforts to continue glaring at him.

"Actually, I was hoping I could borrow your son for a little while," Robin tells her. "It seems Roland here is a bit frightened of dogs all of a sudden. I thought maybe Henry could take Tuck for a walk, and give him a bit of time to come around to the idea."

She's still looking at Roland, her smile easy now as the boy peeks out from Robin's neck again.

"You're afraid of Tuck?" she asks, her voice disbelieving but somehow soft and kind, more so than he's ever heard it. It makes him smile despite himself, this glimpse of a mother's touch from her. Roland nods against his neck, and Regina hums softly then tells him, "Well, I don't think you have anything to worry about; he's a very nice dog. But I do think Henry could use some fresh air, and he's been remarkably adept at sneaking cookies behind my back all afternoon, so..." She turns her head, calls down the hallway, "Henry, come here please!"

Tuck is up on his feet then, about to trot his way into the house, but Regina stills him with a firm and pointed, "No. _Sit_." Tuck isn't always the most obedient of dogs, but he lands on his rump again immediately at her tone that brooks no disobedience. "The last thing I need in this house right now is dog hair and muddy paw prints."

"He's clean," Robin defends, rubbing a hand over Roland's back as the boy snuggles in close again.

Regina narrows her eyes slightly at the movement, then sighs and opens the front door further, beckoning him forward. "Will you bring that child in out of the cold before he freezes?"

Robin doesn't need to be invited twice. He steps over the threshold, but doesn't dare go any further than the mat inside, letting the door swing mostly closed as he spies Henry making his way down the hall. He catches sight of Robin and perks up, closing the gap more quickly.

"Hey!" he greets. "What are you doing here?"

"The doggy," Roland answers soberly, and Robin has to stifle a chuckle at the seriousness with which his toddler had spoken.

"Your mother has graciously given me permission to take advantage of your dog walking services," Robin explains, and the young lad's face brightens instantly.

"Really?" he asks, looking to his mum.

"Really," she confirms. "Put on your coat, I don't want any complaints about a hat and scarf in this weather, and I want you back here by 4:30 to get ready for your grandparents."

Henry nods and scrambles for his shoes, plunking down to the floor and tugging them onto his feet. Robin adjusts his hold on Roland and takes a second to really look at Regina (he likes the look of her, and there's nothing wrong with that, with appreciating a beautiful woman, even when your own heart is in a bit of confusion). There's silence for a moment and then he asks, "Boston College?" nodding toward her sweatshirt.

It's Henry who answers from where he's now tying his laces. "My dad went there," he says matter of factly. Robin is still looking at Regina, so he doesn't miss the way her lips quirk up at the corners in a bittersweet little smile that fades almost as soon as it's begun.

"My daddy went to London!" Roland interjects, wanting to be a part of things apparently. "He just got back."

One of Regina's dark eyebrows lifts up, and Robin finds himself wondering how someone can put so many different emotions into a simple gesture. Derision. Sympathy. Amusement.

"I'm sure it was quite the trip," she tells Roland, and for some reason Robin feels a hot lick of shame. Feels judged once again. But when Henry stands and starts to say a confused _Wait, but he's been-_, she interrupts and speaks over him, telling him to get his coat with a pointed shake of her head. Henry frowns, but obeys.

Robin gives her what he hopes is a look of gratitude, and she nods softly in return, then smiles at Roland and points out that they haven't been properly introduced.

"I'm Roland!"

"It's very nice to meet you, Roland," she tells him, holding out her hand to shake his. Robin grins, quite enjoying her apparent soft spot for children. "I'm Regina."

"Nice to meet you," Roland parrots back at her, and now it's Regina who's grinning.

And then Henry is ready to go, and they're off and out the door.

**.::.**

At precisely 4:36, Regina shoves her feet into the single pair of Ugg boots she owns and heads out the door. She'll be shoving said short boots into the back of her closet as soon as she returns home, because Lord only knows what her mother would say if she caught sight of them – that they're hideous and unflattering, most likely, and if Regina were being honest, she'd admit that Cora is probably right. But they're warm and they're comfortable, easy to slip on and off, and the quick trek she's about to make to the neighbor's is as far as she's ever worn them outside of the house, so who really cares?

The rest of her looks perfectly presentable - she's in slim-cut camel khakis and a cozy, cream-colored cable-knit sweater. One that drapes just a little, just enough to mask any part of her that might bulge or pinch and give Cora something to criticize. She's kept her makeup light and simple, and is wearing the earrings Mother gave her for Christmas, the necklace she got for her birthday two years ago, and the watch Daddy sent her a few weeks back for Valentine's Day.

Appetizers are made, and wine is chilling. She'd even had time (had needed something to keep her busy) to prep a little extra salad and cut up some fruit - apples and pears - and pack them into the tupperwares currently gripped in her hands. It's not that she's feeling overly charitable, but mac and cheese on its own isn't a properly balanced meal for a growing boy, now is it?

She trots the few yards to John's place, shivering slightly in the cold as she climbs the steps and presses the doorbell (maybe she should've grabbed her coat, after all). A single bark from Tuck sounds from inside, and then the door is opening to a decidedly guilty-looking Robin.

"He's late," she tells him simply, doing her best to look annoyed and put-out.

"I know," Robin admits. "He's reading Roland a book while I get dinner started. They're just about on the last page."

Regina melts a little at that - at the thought of her son having storytime with his, so she nods and sighs, and holds out the plastic containers in her hand. "Then I suppose I got here just in time."

Robin frowns, looking at her offerings with confusion. "What's all this?"

"Salad. Fruit. Noodles and cheese are not a full meal," she lectures lightly. "That child needs some proper nutrition in his dinner."

He pulls a face, muttering, "I know how to feed my son," but he takes the tupperware nonetheless and asks, "Do you want to come in and wait, or shall I send Henry along as soon as he's finished?"

"I want him home in the next five minutes," she tells him, crossing her arms over her chest now that her hands are empty. "Assuming you can make that happen, I'll go."

"I think I can manage," he tells her tartly, and for a moment - just a moment - she feels bad for clearly having irritated him. She knows she's short-tempered and edgy, and he's simply an easy target. So she keeps her mouth shut and nods, bites back the impulse to tell him to see that he does, and turns to leave.

To her surprise, he stops her, says her name and has her turning back to face him with brows raised in interest.

"You look lovely tonight," he tells her earnestly, his irritation from a moment before seemingly pushed back, down, away. The compliment catches her off guard, has her smiling softly before she can help it, lifting a hand and tucking her hair back behind her ear. She knows why he's saying it, knows it's because of what she'd confessed about her mother earlier that afternoon, but it doesn't make her appreciate it any less. Maybe more, in fact.

So she tells him, "Thank you," and, "I hope you guys had a good day."

"We did," he assures her with a smile, lifting the food in his hands and adding, "Thank you for this."

"Of course," she murmurs, then she gives him a pointed look and reminds, "Four minutes."

His face splits into that wide, friendly grin that makes something somersault stupidly in her belly, and he laughs, nods his head. "Yes, of course. Go on."

She does, and this time he doesn't stop her.

She hears the front door open and shut with a soft bang a few minutes later as she's stashing her boots in her closet, and then Henry's voice calling up the stairs to tell her he's home.

**.::.**

He may have been late getting Henry back to his mother, but there's not a chance in hell that Robin will risk being late with Roland. In fact, he arrives early by a good quarter hour, pulling into his usual parking spot outside their building (her building, he reminds himself, despite his name still being on the lease for their apartment). He unclips Roland from his car seat, shoulders the boy's bag and then takes his hand, holding it as they climb the steps to the second floor. He lets himself into the building with his own keys, but when he reaches their apartment, he's not quite sure what to do. Does he knock? Does he let himself in? Roland still thinks he lives there with them.

Sure enough, he's reaching up and asking, "Daddy, I can turn it?" his little fingers patting the knob, expecting to turn the keys Robin has gripped in his other hand.

He clears his throat slightly and murmurs, "Of course, my boy," slipping his key into the lock and helping his son's little fingers give it a turn until the door opens with a click. Roland giggles and runs inside, Robin following after.

Marian comes in from the kitchen, looking startled and disapproving. Right, then. He's lost letting-himself-in privileges, it seems.

"Roland wanted to turn the key," he tells her as he shuts the door behind him - because this will not be just a drop off. He's not leaving his boy at the threshold and returning home alone without so much as a bedtime story. And he wants to talk to Marian - really talk to her - once Roland is down for the night, although he has no idea what he'll say.

Marian nods, something tight and sad in her expression as it shifts to Roland. "He usually does," she murmurs, and Robin feels suddenly awkward in his own home. He's lived here for years, and yet it all feels strange now. Like it's not his, like he doesn't belong. She's changed the cushions on the sofa, and rearranged the furniture - moved the sofa off the far wall like she'd always wanted to try (it looks better this way, she'd been right, of course she had).

For a minute, they just stand there, the two of them, silent and unsure, and then Robin sets Roland's bag on the floor nearby to the coffee table, and the boy looks at him from his perch on the couch, and scowls.

"Daddy, where's your bag?"

"My bag?" he asks, brow furrowing.

"From your trip!" Roland supplies, and Robin's heart twists and clenches. Roland thinks he's coming home. And he's the farthest thing from it. Roland's voice is bemused as he adds, "You forgot it."

Robin looks to Marian then, catches her gaze and looks hard at her, asking wordlessly if she's sure, if she's certain, if this is really what she wants. Because if it is, they've hit an impasse. He won't lie to his boy again, won't leave him to wonder why his father is gone again come morning, and he won't let Marian be the only one to tell him that his happy home is splitting apart either. He's missed enough of Roland's life these past few weeks, and he won't be absent for breaking his little heart, too.

Marian takes a deep breath and looks away, crouches in front of Roland and says, "Daddy is going to stay with Uncle John, baby."

Robin's stomach goes hot, then cold, and he fists his fingers when he feels them start to tremble, his legs carrying him numbly to the sofa cushion next to Roland's as the boy's face falls to confusion and he asks, "But why? Daddy lives here."

"Not anymore," Marian tells him, and if there's a hint of a tremble in her voice, well, good.

They should have discussed this before. How to tell Roland - _what_ to tell Roland. This was selfish of them. They could cock it all up in a heartbeat.

Roland looks to Robin with wide, dark eyes, and asks, "Why not?" and Robin cannot help himself. He reaches for his boy and hauls him into his lap, faces him away from Marian, and rakes his fingers through dark curls before letting his palm rest at the back of his son's neck.

What on earth can he tell him? Daddy is a failure? Daddy ruined everything? Daddy, who you so admire, isn't worth a lick of your affection right now?

No, he can't do that. Maybe it's the truth, but he cannot say it. He goes for diplomacy instead, struggling for the right words and coming up with, "Sometimes… mummies and daddies… they stop getting along. And when that happens, sometimes it's better… for them to be apart for a little while."

"Robin," Marian murmurs, and he feels a flash of irrational anger toward her. He knows what she wants - that she wants him not to give Roland false hope of a reconciliation, but for God's sake, the boy is _three_, could she be a touch less cruel for just a moment? (She's trying not to be, he knows that, he can tell by the way she lifts a finger to wipe away a tear before it falls. She's hurting too, hurting deeply, on account of him and what he's done, on account of what their ending will do to Roland.)

"Sometimes it's best for them to be apart. To not live together anymore," he amends for Roland and the boy's eyes fill with tears that make Robin feel like utter shit.

Roland's lip trembles as he asks, "You're going 'way again?"

"No, my boy," Robin assures, lifting Roland until his knees curl under him. They dig into Robin's thighs as he shifts him so they're face to face, looking straight into those tearful eyes and swearing, "I'm not going away. Just to Uncle John's. It's not far, remember? Only a short drive. We'll still see each other all the time. All the time, I promise," he vows, because he will not let weeks go by again before he sees his son. He won't allow it, and if he has to force Marian's hand by promising he'll see him often, well, so fucking be it. He can accept that he'd committed an unforgivable offense against Marian, but he's done nothing to Roland. Nothing to hurt his boy, and he won't let Roland suffer any more than he has to for Robin's crimes.

"Tomorrow?" Roland whimpers, big, fat tears leaking from his eyes now as his breath hitches, and God, Robin's chest feels like it's being crushed with a vice. He's done this - this is his fault. If he'd just been honest, been righteous, his boy would not be in tears and his life would not be in shambles. He'd thought vomiting up the better part of a bottle of whiskey in a stranger's powder room had been his low point, but he'd been wrong. This is it. This, sitting here with his son in tears of his own causing, ripping his precious son's family into pieces, this is the worst of it. God, he hopes this is the worst of it.

"I don't think so, my boy," he tells him, his throat like a clenched fist, his voice tight. "But soon. Very soon."

"But I miss you," his son cries, crashing forward into Robin's shoulder and grasping at his neck with soft, pudgy arms. Robin's eyes squeeze shut, his own arms wrapping around Roland's little body, holding him tight and rocking as he feels his eyes prickle and wet with tears. "Don't go!"

He's angry again, then, furious at Marian for this. Because this _isn't_ his doing, this separation; it's hers. She's decided this, she's kicked him out. His eyes crack open to glare balefully at her, and he shakes his head, grits his teeth. His only consolation is that her eyes are wet, too, her face a mess of heartbreak as she stares helplessly at their son's back. Robin buries his face into Roland's shoulder with a heavy exhale because he has nothing to say. No reassurances for his boy, no power to change all this and make the tears stop.

"I'm sorry, my boy," he whispers into his baby's soft skin, clutching him close and rocking him as he cries. "I'll see you again soon, I promise. I promise."

They stay that way for a minute more, and then Marian clears her throat and pushes to her feet, and says, "It's time for your bath, baby."

Roland will have none of it. Absolutely none. He refuses to let go, cries that he doesn't want a bath, he wants Daddy, and in the interest of buying more time with his son and trying to calm the boy before he dissolves into absolute hysterics, Robin tells Marian he'll handle bathtime.

It's a quick affair, though. Roland is still crying and miserable, doesn't want his toys, doesn't want the colored soap they often use to draw on his arms, his legs, the tiles. So Robin simply soaps and rinses, and then wraps the boy up in a big fluffy towel and carries him to his bedroom. And if he lingers there for nearly an hour, cuddling and talking and reading a story, if he stays until Roland finally cannot hold up his heavy eyelids any longer, that's his right as a father. He deposits him carefully in his bed and pulls his covers up to the shoulders of his Spider-Man pajamas, and for a few minutes more he just sits there and looks at him. At his child, his whole world, his brightest light. Traces gentle fingers through soft curls and memorizes every line and curve of his son's face.

He's surprised, honestly, that Marian hasn't come to boot him out yet.

When he finally emerges from the bedroom, she's on the sofa, still as a statue, a mug of tea in her hand. There are suitcases piled by the front door, and boxes, too. His things, he realizes with a punch of misery. So this is it, then.

The end of things.

"He's asleep," Robin mutters, and Marian finally moves then, nodding and unfurling her legs slowly, setting her mug on a coaster in front of her before she stands. "We broke his heart tonight."

"I know," she says quietly, and when she finally looks up at him, her eyes are red and puffy.

"Don't turn him against me," Robin whispers, afraid almost to voice it, because he knows as well as she does that she holds all the cards here. And it's not like her to be cruel, to be petty, to strike out, but he didn't think it was like her to leave either, and here they are. Both of them somehow strangers to each other after so long being allies, being lovers, being as close as one can be to a person. They're both uncertain now, both unsure, and he has to know that whatever bad blood there is between himself and Marian, it won't touch his relationship with Roland.

To his relief, she shakes her head, tells him, "I won't. I want him to have a father - his father - but, God, Robin, I want you to be better. For him."

"I will be," he swears. "I'm trying."

"I know."

"And I am truly sorry."

She shakes her head, tells him, "I know. But it doesn't change this."

"I want to see him this week," Robin pushes, because he's made a promise to his boy and he intends to keep it. "I want to see him _every_ week. I need to be with him. I need to be in his life."

"We'll work it out," is all she replies, but it's not good enough. Not for him, not tonight.

"Promise me," he demands. "Promise me that I will see my son every week. Unless one of us is out of town, or – I want him weekly, Marian. I–"

"Alright," she interrupts, and the few feet between them feels like miles when she looks up to meet his gaze, her own weary and sad. "Weekly. But if you start to spiral again, if you start doing things like–"

"I won't."

"If you do," she continues pointedly, "I'm going to protect my son. Get your shit together, Robin, and you'll keep seeing him." She softens then, and her hand twitches out as if to reach for him, then falls back to her side, both of them moving to her pockets and sliding there, taking root. "I'm not heartless, Robin, I just don't want you to disappoint him. I know what it's like to have a dad who's just not… there, and I don't want that for him."

"I'm not your father," he tells her quietly. He doesn't have the heart to be mean over this, doesn't have the desire to at this particular moment. He won't twist knives in her wounds, but he needs her to know, "I'm not him, you know that. You're the one who kept me from our son, not me."

"I know," she murmurs, and then she sucks in a breath, stares at her mug as she admits, "And I'm sorry for that. But I needed time. I wasn't ready to see you."

"And now?"

She lifts her head, looks him in the eyes again.

"Now, you need to take your things, and go."

He does. It takes several trips to get all of his things into the car, and a sort of Tetris-style rearranging of bags until everything fits, but he manages. And then he drives away from his home, and his son, and the woman he'd thought just a week ago would still be in his life indefinitely. He drives… home, he supposes. John's place is home now, for lack of another.

And John is there when he arrives, helps him haul his bags and boxes from car to bedroom, and then sits on the couch with him while something mindless plays on the telly, a beer in both their hands.

He sips slowly, refuses John's offer for another, and goes to bed early.

**.::.**

Regina runs.

She runs until her heart is galloping, her body slicked with sweat, the steady rhythm of her sneakers against the treadmill drowned out by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals blasting at an irresponsible volume into her headphones. But it's not enough to drown out her own thoughts, her simmering resentment, her useless shame.

Her mother had been in fine form tonight from the minute she walked into the door (thirty minutes before she'd said they'd be there), and she echoes, echoes, echoes through Regina's head as she sweats and pants and pushes herself harder.

_Regina, dear, what is that on the wall? Well, why on earth would you need a security system in such a __**safe**__ neighborhood? You could do so much better than this place…_

_Do you really think that shade of lipstick suits you, dear? And you really shouldn't wear cream, darling, it washes you out. _

_Do you still have that hideous painting? _(It had hung in Daniel's apartment in Boston, and now it's here in her hallway, and no, maybe it doesn't match perfectly, but, well, she keeps it nonetheless.) _I thought you'd have replaced it with something better by now._

_Don't you think this blue makes the room feel a bit cold in the wintertime? The tan was so much warmer, dear._

(Thank God for her father, for his quiet rebuttals of everything that Cora says - he likes the blue, he thinks the sweater suits her nicely, he compliments her on her cooking and tells her in a fervent murmur to ignore her mother, that she's just unhappy it's been so long between visits and is taking it out on her. Regina wants to point out that if her mother was less like _this_, then perhaps they'd visit more often.)

_Honestly, you still keep a picture of yourself with that foolish man on the mantel? It's been eleven years, Regina. I guess it's a good thing you haven't been bringing men home - what would they think of a woman who can't let go of a man who's been dead for a decade?_

_The fish is lovely, dear. _(She'd almost had her with that one, had had Regina smiling softly, a flush of pride in her chest.) _If a bit dry. You know, you have to be careful with tilapia, it's so easy to overcook._

_Oh no, no cookies for me. I'm still recovering from the holidays. Perhaps you should stick to one, dear, you know how easily the women in your father's family pack on weight._

_If Henry's having such a hard time with math, perhaps it's time for a tutor, darling. _

That had been her last straw, the thing that had her declaring it was time for Henry to go take a shower before bed, that she didn't want him up too late. That they should head home. She can handle Cora, can deal with the comments, the belittling, the backhanded compliments. She's lived with them her whole life, but she will be damned if she lets Henry suffer the same.

And no, maybe math isn't his strongest subject, but she wouldn't say he's struggling, not any more than any child does when they simply don't have a head for numbers and facts and figures. Henry's a creative boy, a smart child, a reader, a dreamer. So he struggles a bit with long division, who cares? He's passing, and he's trying, and they're working through all of this together, and that's what matters. She will not -_ will not _- let Cora shame her child over a C.

Even if she has considered a tutor, once or twice. Even if she does worry that he'll never pull that C up to a B like they're trying to do. Even if she frowned when she saw it, stark and ugly against all his A's and B's.

Those are her concerns, not Henry's and–

She nearly stumbles, startling hard at the sight of movement in her periphery. It's Henry, in his pajamas. He's supposed to be in bed. She had tucked him in a while ago, before she'd come down here to run herself dry, so the sight of him is jarring, disorienting. She punches the intensity down, down, down on the treadmill to slow her pace to a walk and yanks the headphones from her ears.

"Sweetheart, you're supposed to be in bed," she pants.

"I know," he admits with a grimace and, "I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep."

Regina nods, thinks she knows the feeling. She always has a hard time sleeping after a full evening of her mother, and, God, is Henry picking up that habit, too? She hopes he isn't. Hopes he lives a life free of sleepless nights, of restless anxiety. She's failing him, she thinks. If she can't find a way to raise him strong, and calm, and happy, she's failing him.

But then he admits, "I think I might've had too many cookies," and she realizes that no, it's a sugar high. A different sort of failure, perhaps, but a much milder one. "And that creepy car drove by again. The one that always goes really slow down the block. I saw it from my window."

Regina frowns, then asks, "Now how would you know that if you were trying to sleep?"

Henry's face goes guilty and sly, his shoulders shrugging. "I got bored?" he tries, and Regina can't help but chuckle at him. "I'm _wide awake_," he sighs in excuse.

She should send him back to bed - she should - but it's the weekend, and it's not as though they need to be up early tomorrow. So she smiles at her son, and tells him, "Why don't we watch a movie before bed?", pleased at the way he perks up at the idea.

"Really?"

"Mmhmm," she replies, still a bit breathless from her workout. "You pick. I'll go shower, and be right back."

"Cool!" Then he gives her his best winning smile and asks, "Popcorn?"

It's late, far later than either of them should be eating, and she thinks of her mother again, of empty calories, of unnecessary carbs, of – No.

No, she will not let Cora steal any more time from her tonight, and she certainly won't let her steal any of Henry's joy.

So she nods, asks if he remembers how to make it himself. When he tells her he does, she sends him on his way and heads for the shower.

When she comes back fifteen minutes later in pajamas of her own, he's already on the couch, munching on popcorn from the bowl in his lap with the TV stopped on the DVD menu for _The Sword in the Stone_. Regina smiles and settles down next to him, grabbing a blanket from the back of the sofa and spreading it across them before reaching for a handful of popcorn herself. It's buttery and delicious, and she tells herself she's allowed this, that she ran off plenty before Henry interrupted her.

"You ready?" he asks, lifting the remote and smiling at her.

"Ready," she confirms, and moments later the fanfare of the opening credits begins to sound.

Henry leans into her side, lets his head fall to her shoulder, and Regina lets her own tip against it.

Halfway through the movie, he is heavy against her, sound asleep, limp fingers hooked on the edge of the popcorn bowl. She could stop the movie, could carry him up to bed and maybe turn in early herself. But she doesn't. She stays where she is, watches the familiar scenes play out in front of her and tries very hard not to brood.


End file.
